The Grape Vine that is Hogwarts
by Eridanus1123
Summary: Hogwarts is full of teenagers, and it must be expected that there is gossip. A lot of it. It's already happened to Harry, but what happens when it hits Draco and Hermione?
1. An Unexpected Partnership

_Author's Note: Boo. This was initially supposed to be a 5000 word or so oneshot. I'm splitting it into a few chapters, but please let me know if you think I should extend it or replace this first chapter with the original oneshot. _

_Chapter 1_

An Unexpected Partnership

Draco Malfoy adjusted his tie. He didn't like ties. Made it easier for the – many – people who wanted him dead. If he had been Mad Eye Moody, he would have decided that it was a conspiracy theory by the stupid school. He knew that Dumbledore would just _love_ to get his spindly hands around Draco's neck, after everything Draco had done to poor itty Pottsy. Stupid Potter. Always gets whatever he wants, just by having a little chat to Dumbledore. He'd always thought there was something suspicious about their relationship. But he didn't particularly give a damn as to whatever Potter and Dumbledore did or talked about. All he wanted was to stay alive, which could be a little tricky considering his current situation in life.

He swept out of the Slytherin common room, ignoring Crabbe, Goyle, Blaise, Parkinson, but speaking to a little third year. Admittedly, the only words he said were, "Get lost," but it was more than the others had earned. He was cross with them. _Very_ cross. As in, wanted to gouge their eyeballs out with his wand sort of cross. They had decided between themselves that he had a _girlfriend_. Parkinson had cried, Blaise had smirked, Crabbe and Goyle had stood there stupidly like the idiots they were. Draco had simply swept out of the Slytherin common room, ignoring them but speaking to a little third year. Admittedly, the only-

'_Oh Merlin,_' thought Draco. '_I'm going mad_.'

Whenever he started repeating himself like a song on loop, he knew there was something wrong. Actually, he'd always suspected that there was a slight glitch in his brain, although he would rather die that admit it. Probably from his father 'accidentally' dropping him on his head as a baby one too many times or something... it seemed like the sort of thing his father would do. He was hit with a vivid mental image of baby basketball Draco, being bouncing against the floor and ceiling and walls by a gleeful-looking Lucius. He shook his head hurriedly. Being cross always brought out the strangest ideas in his head.

The Slytherin table in the Great Hall was surprisingly peaceful. He'd gotten there a little on the late side, and there was barely anyone left. Except Potty. And Weasley and Granger. He would have shot them – ingenious things, those Muggle guns – then and there for disturbing his private breakfast, if Dumbledore hadn't been sitting at the Head table. And he probably would have, too. They were all laughing obnoxiously loudly, Potter's still-breaking tenor mixing with Weasley's baritone and Granger's tinkling soprano. Put him off his bacon a bit, actually.

When he arrived back in the Slytherin common room, Pansy sang at him, "We know who it is!"

"Really? Keep me informed, won't you? It really is a little disappointing that I haven't a clue who my _girlfriend_ is supposed to be."

"It's the Mudblood, isn't it?" said Blaise from his armchair in the corner. He was smoking a Muggle pipe, exhaling purple-blue smoke from the corner of his mouth.

"The Mudbl- _Granger_? Why on earth would I date a Mudblood?"

"So you aren't?" asked Goyle, looking crestfallen.

"Of course not, you _idiot_," he snapped, and headed straight out of the common room again. He couldn't deal with them. Not now.

He ran straight into Granger, and felt his cheeks redden slightly at the thought of what Blaise had said. How had they gotten _that_ idea?

"Malfoy," she said coldly.

"Granger," he said, inclining his head slightly.

"We need to talk," she said, brisker than usual, and began walking up a set of stairs that led to some sort of tower. He followed uncertainly, not sure if she wanted to kill him or whatever. Once she reached the top, she whirled around with her hands on her hips. "What the _hell_ have you been spreading? _Seven_ people have asked me if I was _dating you_, this morning _alone._"

"Y-You too?" he asked, stunned.

"What do you mean, me too? Weren't you spreading it for the sole aim of humiliating and irritating me to the best of your ability?"

"Uh... nope."

"Oh." She looked crestfallen. "Then who the hell did?"

"How am _I_ supposed to know, Granger? Aren't _you_ supposed to be the one who knows everything?" he sneered.

She rolled her eyes at him, the arrogant Mudblood. "You're incredibly touchy today, Malfoy. What, this rumour got you jumpy?"

"Of course it has," he said, shuddering. "I don't _want _people thinking I'm with _you_."

"Trust me, I'm not too fond of the idea myself," she said dryly.

He glared at her. "You think I'm worried about the gossip hounds? Granger, my father is a _Death Eater_." When she flinched, he continued, "Oh, grow up. You know it. He is. And my Death Eater father has a bunch of Death Eater friends as well as... oh yeah, _Voldemort_! _Now_ do you get it?"

She watched him for a few seconds, her brown eyes burning into his like she was trying to read his mind or something. Then she stood up and started walking away.

"Where are you going?" he called after her, miffed that she was just walking away from him. "Offended?"

"No," she said simply, without turning around. "Finding whoever did this."

Well, he couldn't very well leave all the work up to _her_. For all he knew, she'd just take the opportunity to spread a bit more information about him throughout the school, and, well, that 

would suck. So he followed after her, his expensive shoes making loud noises on the stone floors as he increased his pace to catch her up.

"What are you doing?" she asked, glaring at him.

"Ah! I _did_ offend you!"

"By talking about my heritage, as you have been doing for the past five or so years? I don't think so. You think my skin's that soft, Malfoy?"

"Erm..." He didn't know if it would be wise to say 'uh... well, duh'.

She kept walking. It was really pissing him off. How would _she_ know where to go? All she knew was that someone was spreading nasty and totally inconceivable rumours about the two of them. For some reason, she was striding towards a statue which asked her a riddle. She thought for a moment, and answered, "Time." He didn't get it, but then again, _he_ wasn't the one with his head always buried in a book.

"Correct," sighed the statue. "You should have been in Ravenclaw, girl."

Granger shrugged modestly. "I need Cho Chang."

Ah, of course. The gossip guru. Typical, that Granger somehow had a web of well-informed students in every house... except his own, of course. He hoped so, at least.

Chang walked out of the Ravenclaw common room. "H-Hermione? What are you doing here?"

"Can it, Chang," said Granger, leaning in very close to Cho Chang. Malfoy watched, shocked and just a little bit impressed, as Granger hissed, "I know it was you. You're jealous that Harry and I are friends, and you wanted me out of the way."

Chang had the decency, at least, to look guilty.

"I advise that you use your little chain of giggling girlfriends to _dash this rumour into the cobblestones_," growled Granger. "Or I promise, Harry will have heard worse things than about your little fling with Roger Davies."

Chang went a funny colour, and whispered something to the Edgecomb girl. They both hurried back into the common room, shooting back dirty looks at Hermione. Granger, he corrected himself.

"Merlin," he said, walking in the opposite direction after Granger. "That was a little... intimidating."

"Shut up, Malfoy. I'm not in the mood for you."

"Aren't you?" he said, wriggling his eyebrows.

"No, I'm not," she snapped. "I've got to speak to Harry."

"'Bout what?" he asked, jogging a little as she walked faster.

"Asking him to make his little girlfriend keep me out of their relationship," she said primly, turning a corner and disappearing.

He stood for a moment, remembering Granger with Chang's collar in her fist, hissing into her face. It had been _scary_. He would have felt sorry for Chang, if there wasn't an even longer list of reasons for him not to. Like her fraternising with Potty. And being annoying. And not in Slytherin. You know. The usual.

He stomped back to the common room, all of a sudden incredibly annoyed again. Blaise was smirking in his armchair, the pipe still fixed between his teeth.

"You're blushing, Draco," he observed with a sneer. "What is it?"

"It was _Chang_," he spat.

"Sorry?"

"Chang started the rumour," he informed Blaise.

"_I_ didn't hear it from Chang," said Blaise with a small shrug. "Heard it from Theodore Nott, who wouldn't dream of going _near_ her. He said he'd seen you two 'chatting' beside the lake. By chatting, we all assumed he meant making out."

Actually, the 'chatting' hadn't even been chatting. She had invaded his privacy, sitting below his tree. When he had arrived, he had, obviously, yelled at her. She'd yelled back, and in the end, she had grabbed his shirt and pulled him down to her level, their faces very close together, so she could hiss, "Go die." Oh. He had just understood where this part of the rumour might have gained a little substance. Not that they'd been making out. Ew. Like he'd kiss a Mudblood. He just, er, understood how it may have looked to any idiot stupid enough to consider the possibility.

Parkinson grabbed his arm. "Hey Draco! Did you hear?"

"Hear what, Pansy?" he forced himself to say.

She giggled. "The little Creevey boy got a picture of you and Granger together today! Oh, it's just _adorable_..." Here, she began to scream. "_How could you cheat on me with a Mudblood?_"

"Cheat?" he asked, surprised. "I didn't know we were going out."

"So that makes it okay?" she sobbed. "And you _admitted_ it! Just then! Draco Malfoy, I'm writing to your mother!"

"Whoa!" he said, grabbing her by the wrist. "I don't think so."

Her bottom lip jutted out.

"Erm..." he said slowly. "I am not dating her. I never have, and never will. _Ever_."

"Good!" she said enthusiastically, touching his face. "Come here, you-"

"Gotta go," he said, and hastily steered his way out of the common room. Granger was there, her hands on her hips again. "What are you-"

She thrust a photograph into his hands. Yeah, them by the lake... her leaning forward. Oh, crap. Her head was tilted to face him, as she muttered her threat in his ear. You could only see the back of her head and it looked... well, it looked like she was kissing his neck. His eyes widened when the little photo Draco leant to her, and kissed her cheek. He bristled with indignation. He'd been saying, "Never, Mudblood," not _kissing her_.

"That's... that's not what happened!" he stammered.

"I'm aware of that," she snapped. "I was there, remember?"

"What do we do?"

Dumbledore drifted past, smiling fondly at the two of them. He stopped for a moment, and said, "It's nice to see that the houses are finally patching up the rift. Congratulations, Miss Granger, Mr Malfoy."

Hermione gave a frustrated scream, and stormed off.

"Was it something I said?" the old man asked Draco, smiling slightly, before he floated off again.

Draco sent a desperate look in both directions, and raced after Hermione. He wasn't fond of her, sure, but he wasn't going to let her go kill people, was he? He found her in the library, pacing back and forth as she dictated to her quill.

"Students, teachers, house elves and every other foul creature of Hogwarts. You are all idiots. The idea of I, Hermione Granger, dating Malfoy is absolutely _absurd_, and he feels the same. You all stink. The next person to bring it up will be killed. Painfully."

"What are you doing?" he asked curiously.

"Writing to the students of Hogwarts," she said, and then went back and told her pen, "Wait, take out the 'he feels the same'. They'd assume we'd have to be in each other's presence to decide that." When the quill started writing, 'Wait, take out the-' she interrupted it, snatching it off the table and writing herself.

"Er, Hermione, are you quite all right?"

She stared at him. "You... you called me Hermione..."

"No, I didn't," he said immediately. "Granger."

"You _did_," she insisted. "I'm not an idiot, Draco Malfoy."

"And if I did?" he challenged. "You must admit, as disgusting as it is, we're in this mess together."

"And how would you say we fix this mess, _Draco_?"

He leant in conspiratorially. "I say we chuck the next person who says anything off the Divination tower."

She raised an eyebrow about how close he was, but relented. "I'd say... I think that'd be an effective strategy."

"See? I have _ideas_," he informed her.

"Yes, thank you, genius," she said sarcastically. "Okay. I'm going to go to bed."

At least she acknowledged his presence before disappearing this time. Never mind that it was only four in the afternoon. Weirdo.

Draco wandered back to the common room, where Blaise was still sitting in the chair, with a newspaper which he was scanning.

"Blaise," said Draco, nodding at him.

"Hello, Draco. Did you enjoy wherever you went off to?" The sparkling in his dark eyes made it rather obvious that Blaise had a fair idea of where he thought Draco had been. The scary thing was, he probably wasn't too far off.

"Erm..." Draco wasn't sure how to answer. He hadn't exactly had the worst time of his life. No, the prize went to... oh, every second he spent in his father's presence. But if he said 'sure', Blaise would interpret that as he chose, and by tomorrow morning every body would be screaming 'oh my Merlin! Draco Malfoy said he loved Granger!'

So he went into the dormitory instead of replying to Blaise. Safer that way, really. He lay on his bed, and tried to think of a 'plan'. Well, good plan it was. By the time dinner came around, his wonderful, super duper plan that was going to get everyone of his and Hermione's backs consisted of... well, nothing.

He ate uncomfortably, feeling the gazes of every student at Hogwarts – minus Hermione, who was glaring at Potter and Weasel – along with those of every teacher, ghost or mix of the two. Their attention shifted between him and Hermione, like they were waiting for one of them to make a move. Hermione did. She stood up and left.

Every head in the room swivelled to stare at him. He knew what they wanted. He wasn't going to give in.

"Was she _crying_?" asked the voice of a disdainful Slytherin first year.

_Shit_, he thought, and followed Hermione out of the Great Hall. He knew it was idiotic, but she really oughtn't to be _crying_ over this stupid rumour.

"Granger?" he called exasperatedly. "Granger, where are you?"

"I'm right here," she said, sounding calm and collected. "What the _hell_ are you doing here? They'll think you followed me!"

"Erm... I did."

She stepped out from behind a tapestry, showing that she'd been curled up with a bloody book. Her eyes weren't even red, but her face slowly was.

"_Why_? What happened to the whole 'if we're seen together, we're doomed' thing?"

"You were crying. I was being chivalrous."

"Chivalry is dead," she informed him. "You were being stupid."

"Charming, Granger."

"I've been demoted," she noted.

He sneered at her. "Yes, you have."

She seemed to accept that. "Okay then. What are we going to do? Like it or not, this obviously isn't going away. Even the ghosts are in on it now."

"I'm aware of that, thanks. You should have heard the Bloody Baron, swearing away about Mudbloods and bad blood."

"Nearly Headless Nick too, talking his head off about how Slytherins can't be trusted," added Granger.

Draco couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing.

"What?" she asked frantically. "Are you... are you having a seizure or something, Malfoy?"

"It's so _funny_!" he gasped. "Talking his head off... Nearly Headless Nick..."

Hermione stared at him for a moment. Draco wasn't sure why he found it so funny – or alternately, why _she_ didn't. Finally, the corners of her mouth relaxed and she cracked a small half smile.

Once they had calmed down, Hermione brushed herself down and leant against the wall. "Seriously Malfoy, what are we going to do?"

"We could ignore it," he suggested.

She considered, and then nodded once. "Right. We'll ignore it and they'll see what idiots they all are." With that, she hurried off towards the Gryffindor common room. Draco went to the Slytherin one, hoping to get to bed before Blaise pounced on him.

"Where've you been, mister?" asked Blaise from his armchair, sucking placidly on his pipe.

Draco snarled, whipped out his wand, and Blaise started choking on the bubbles that were now coming from his pipe.

"Mature, Draco. Really mature," he snapped, but Draco had already gone into the dormitories, where he succumbed to a night of fitful, restless sleep.

The next morning, the Great Hall seemed kind of... _normal_. Nobody looked at them. They all seemed to be caught up in their newspapers. An owl dropped one of the aforesaid 'newspapers' in front of him. It wasn't a newspaper. It was a Hogwarts newsletter, with a large moving picture of him leaning forward in the library, a smile on his face, and murmuring something to Hermione, who was shown laughing. He swore loudly, and felt himself yanked backwards by the back of his tie. He'd _known_ it would get him in trouble one day, that tie. Just as his air was being well and truly cut off, the pressure on his windpipe disappeared and he could breathe again. He was out of the Great Hall, standing beside the hole in the wall with Hermione.

He rubbed his throat, scowling at her, as she said grimly, "I think we need a new plan."

Damn straight they did.


	2. Under Normal Circumstances

_Author's Note: I've just realised that I forgot to take out the page breaks in the first chapter. Oops. I'll make it good in this one but I can't be bothered replacing the old chapter with the edited fixed up chapter... so yeah. _

_Spot the reference to a Muggle television show... oh Lord, I'm still in Hogwarts-speak. _

_The three people who've reviewed since I posted this have all said to carry it on into a multi-chaptered thing, which, aside from making my day, made up my mind as well. So thank you very much to kimbibly, Nangini and sexihannah. You guys coolest._

* * *

_Chapter 2_

Under Normal Circumstances

Draco Malfoy removed his sock. He wasn't particularly fond of his socks either, but they weren't the most dangerous items in his outfit. He gave it a flick with his wand, and it began to fly around the room, making airplane noises. Blaise, who was lying on his bed with the newsletter, shot him a scathing look, and flipped back to the front page. As it turned out, Draco had completely skipped over the worst part. Perhaps that was his subconscious saying 'Bad! Bad! Destroy all copies!' Now that he had read the article that accompanied the picture, he was trusting his subconscious more and more. For there hadn't just been a _picture_. There had been picture_s_, as in the plural, as in a line of writing that said 'wave your wand over each caption to see pictures of the sneaky couple!'

"Draco dearest," said Blaise lazily. "Care to send that sock elsewhere?"

Draco hadn't actually realised what he had been doing, lost in his angry reminisces about stupid idiotic newsletter writers. When he glanced over at Blaise, he realised that he had inadvertently been making the sock attack Blaise. It was currently hovering around his face, particularly persistent in trying to get up his nose. Draco couldn't help but smile slightly at the sight of Blaise reading, and occasionally swatting away the green sock that was hovering around his face. It would have been a lot funnier if he could somehow instil life into it and sit back and watch, but he could make do with what he _could_ do. At a little prompting from Draco's wand, the sock covered Blaise's eyes and practically grafted itself to his head.

"Draco!" yelled Blaise. "Get your bloody sock _away from me_!"

"What's the magic word?" said Draco boredly, waving his wand a little.

"_Fu-_"

"Okay, okay!" said Draco hastily, and made the sock relent. Blaise responded by incinerating his poor, defenceless sock into a little pile of sock ashes that floated over to Draco and landed on his head.

"You," said Blaise calmly, returning to his newsletter, "are a jerk."

"Thank you, Blaise. Your praise means ever so much to me," said Draco sarcastically, sliding off the bed and walking out to the common room. Parkinson was curled up on the couch, in barely-there 

pyjamas. She was gazing vacantly at a green tapestry, obviously trying to look intelligent and bored, but in the end just managed to look stoned.

Draco tried to sneak out of the common room without her seeing me. He couldn't stay there... not with her. And he couldn't very well go back into the dormitory, where Blaise was probably waiting to blast me into the next century. No, he had to get out. But as became painfully obvious, the Slytherin doors are just as big of bastards as the Slytherin people. It creaked very, very loudly, and made a loud slamming noise as he gently rested it against the wall. He did the only thing he could. He ran for it.

There came a little 'oomph!' as he ran into something small and soft. Without thinking, he stretched out an arm to catch it, and _then_ realised that it was Granger who was tilted backwards, held up only by his arm. He considered letting her drop... but then restored her to her feet.

"Sorry," he said, looking past her. He needed a place where they could go, where nobody could find them. Then, it hit him. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her up the stairs, strode back and forth in front of the wall on the fourth floor three times, thinking, 'a place where we can go, where nobody can find us'. The wide doors appeared, and he wrenched them open to pull her inside.

"Good one, Malfoy," she noted. "Now everyone'll think we've gone off for a booty call in the Room of Requirement."

The corners of his mouth lifted slightly in a smirk at the idea. Everyone probably _would_ think that, which was exactly why his plan would work.

"No!" she exclaimed ten minutes later, once he'd finished detailing his plan. She seemed a little disgusted, to tell the truth. He didn't know why. _She_ was the Mudblood, not him. "I will _not_ be seen with you!"

"You already have been," he reminded her.

"Not _with_ you with you. That was just with you, in your presence. This would be as a... as a..." The expression that was obvious on her face informed him of just how terrible this idea seemed to her. To _him_, though, it was genius.

"As a couple," he supplied helpfully. "Which everybody already thinks we are. So really, it's nothing different."

"We'd have to... to..."

"Kiss?" he asked, his face showing his contempt for that as well. "Not necessarily. They already think we're dating and we haven't kissed yet... unless there's something you aren't telling me?"

She ignored his joke and continued to glare at him.

"What?"

"You said 'yet'," she accused. "You said, 'we haven't kissed _yet_'."

"Did I? Well, I certainly didn't mean it. Don't worry, Granger. I'm not entertaining any vague hopes or planning it or anything. I swear, I will keep my mouth as far away from your lips as humanly possible."

Her expression was quickly replaced by one of disgust, which merged with an expression of horror.

"What is it now?" he asked exasperatedly, only then realising that he was accidentally implied. "Oh, _gross_, Granger. Keep your head out of the gutter. I will keep my mouth as far away from your entire _body_ as possible."

"My head isn't in the gutter," she informed him. "It's firmly on the pavement. _You_ just have a dirty mouth."

"Maybe it's just your perverted ears," he retorted.

"Maybe it's your dirty mouth!" she argued.

"Or your perverted ears!"

Wands came out, spells flew, and they were left with a Hermione with a rapidly shrinking head, and a Draco with a swelling wrist.

"Argh!" he yelled. "You broke it!"

He clutched at his wrist, shooting her a death stare. She directed her wand at her own little head, missing a few times because of its size. When she aimed right, her head went back to its normal size. She glared at Draco, and grabbed him by the shoulder. She steered him to the hospital wing, where Madam Pomfrey came tut-tutting into the room withdrawing her wand from her apron pocket.

"What have we got here? Ah, a broken wrist. What happened, Mr Malfoy? A lover's tiff?" She flashed a small smile at Hermione, and set to work healing his wrist.

Draco, at that time, was going through tremendous pain. It was nothing compared to the Cruciatus curse, but it still wasn't pleasant. He glared at Hermione nonstop, until he was dismissed from the hospital wing, when he began trying to throttle her.

"Hey!" she said warningly, holding up her wand. "I'll do it again if I have to."

"You better not," he snarled, striding back to the Room of Requirement. He willed for some parchment, which appeared on a table in the cosy sitting room. A quill and ink bottle soon followed, and he hovered the quill over the parchment, waiting for Hermione to dictate.

"What are you doing?" she asked, leaning past him to see what he had written, which was, well, a drop of ink. Her shoulder brushed against his, and she immediately pulled back.

"I'm writing you a letter," he informed her.

"Malfoy, I'm sitting right here," she said, waving slightly. She obviously thought he was an idiot. _He_ knew the extended bounds of his geniusness.

"I'm writing you a letter which will be delivered to you at breakfast tomorrow, which Weasley will snatch out of your hand and read, or Lavender Brown will take from your drawer and read, effectively spreading the information throughout the school."

Her eyebrows came together, and she leant over again. "Okay, well, start with 'Hermione'. If you call me Granger it wouldn't be believable."

He embellished a little, writing, 'My dearest Hermione,' at the top of the parchment. She rolled her eyes a little, and gestured for him to continue.

"I don't know what to write," he said truthfully. "That's where you come in."

She looked appalled. "You want me to write a love letter to myself?"

"No, I want you to dictate a love letter to yourself to me, and I'll write it down." He flashed her his most winning smile, which didn't seem to have a lot of effect.

"I don't think so," she said, sitting down in the red armchair with a book that appeared on the table. "Your idea, you can write whatever you see fit."

"Do you _want_ them to think we're together for the _rest of our lives_?"

She gave a great, dramatic sigh, and said, "Talk about how horrible it is that everybody has found out."

"It... pains me... to no end..." he muttered, his tongue between his teeth as he scribbled, "that the vile vicious vultures..."

"Nice alliteration," she commended.

Draco imagined Ron Weasley reading about himself being called a vulture, and imagined the look on his face with a sense of joy. He continued, "have... discovered our secret..." He looked at Hermione plaintively. "Help?"

"Discovered our secret, and proceed to pick the bones of it until to them, our relationship is little more than an empty shell?" she suggested.

"Lovely!" he exclaimed, scrawling it all down. He was intent upon insulting them all as much as possible. "_We_ know... that it still flourishes... and blooms like..." He wrinkled his face, trying to think of a suitable metaphor. "The blushing roses that adorn your cheeks?"

She looked vaguely disgusted, but nodded. "The soppier the better."

"Erm... now what?"

"'We can only hope that the idiotic gossips will give up, and leave us in peace'?"

He nodded slowly, copying her words onto the paper. An hour later, they have a foot long proclamation of Draco's undying love for Hermione, getting more elaborate and disgustingly romantic as the hour progressed. They'd started to warm to each other a little, which was probably why they got such a kick over laughing at the letter. She was kind of almost half forgiven for his breaking his precious, beautiful wrist. But only almost.

When they exited the Room of Requirement, they realised that it was very late at night. Hermione cast Disillusionment charms over the both of them, which Draco was admittedly quite impressed with. It was complicated magic, those charms. They crept back down the stairs, where they separated. Hermione went back in the direction of the Gryffindor common room, and Draco went back to the Slytherin one. Again, he cursed the loud door, because it alerted the dozing Blaise to his entrance.

"Have you been off doing some sort of hanky panky with the Mudblood, Draco?" he asked, raising one dark eyebrow.

"Define hanky panky," retorted Draco.

Blaise's mouth dropped, and Draco, smirking, climbed into bed and pulled the curtains shut around him. Blaise's voice, though, floated through the material. "You didn't... you didn't do the Mudblood, did you Draco? Oh, your father is going to be _pissed off_."

"I did _not_ do the Mudblood, Blaise," said Draco sharply. "We were _talking_."

"Oh? So Mr Draco Malfoy is actually going _celibate_ for this girl?"

Draco scowled at Blaise through the curtains, although he was well aware that he couldn't see him. Even the vaguest _thought_ of _that_ connected with _Hermione Granger_ was, well, sickening. He wondered as an afterthought if she felt the same way about him. He didn't exactly know why, since he was accustomed to everybody falling at his feet. But... since they had started this talking thing, she hadn't seemed too pleased either. He'd had to _persuade_ her to agree to this plan. Perhaps Granger wasn't as much of a pushover as he thought.

The next morning, Draco went up to the Owlery. He tied his letter to the owl's foot, and told it to deliver it to Hermione Granger at breakfast. It flew out the window. He wondered where it was going. Hermione was in the Great Hall already, with Potter and Weasley talking at her from both sides. She looked bored. Draco, on the other hand, sat down, ignored the gazes of everyone else, and tucked into a very large plate of eggs.

The owls arrived. Draco covered his plate with his napkins. The idea of feathered, filthy creatures flying over the food that everyone was trying to eat... another conspiracy by the school. They were obviously _trying_ to get them to ingest owl filth. The owl with the letter flew over to Hermione, and she patted its head before removing the scroll. She scanned it, and then smiled at him. That was a first. Hermione Granger had _never_ smiled at him before. Then, right on cue, Weaselbee plucked the letter out of her hands and read it. Hermione actually seemed upset that he'd taken it, and was going to great lengths to get it back. Weasley showed the letter to Potter, and they both glared at Hermione and started yelling at her. Very loudly. Very angrily. Well, he'd expected a reaction, just not one of this magnitude. Draco watched carefully, his fork halfway between his plate and his mouth. Hermione seemed to be pleading with them, and they stormed from the Great Hall. She ran after them, still pleading.

He abruptly stood up. "Sorry, all," he said to Blaise and Crabbe and Goyle, who were watching him. "Duty calls." And then he ran after Hermione. He hid behind a statue and watched the confrontation, sensing it might not be wise to step in just yet.

"Ron! Harry! Stop walking away from me! You don't understand!" cried Hermione at Weasley and Potter's retreating backs.

They didn't turn around, the jerks. Draco wondered vaguely why the hell she hung out with them. Then he remembered. Ah, right. Potter was rich and famous, and Weasley came along with as part of the package. Not that he thought Granger was all that materialistic. But if he had a rich, influential friend, and wasn't so rich and influential himself, he'd hang out with that friend too.

A loud thump reminded him that Hermione was there. She had slid down the wall, and was now crumpled on the floor. Oh, Merlin. He stepped out and crouched behind her. "Are you... are you all right?"

"They were apologising," she said, looking up at him. "They said 'if you say you're not dating Malfoy, we believe you'. And then they read the letter, and... and..." She didn't have to finish. He had seen what had happened.

"Well, er... are you going after them, or not?"

"I don't think so," she said simply, and stood up. "Maybe later. I've got to go to class."

He followed, of course. She turned around and frowned at him. "What are you doing?"

"I've got Potions," he said. "With you."

"Oh." He took a step forward and kind of half walked next to her. She let him, too. When they got into Potions, Snape surveyed them both very hard, and then sighed. Hermione went over to the Gryffindor half. Draco joined her. "What are you doing?" she hissed.

"Playing along," he hissed back. "We've got a plan, remember?"

She rolled her eyes, and unfolded her folding cauldron. Snape was watching them again, noticed Draco. He looked back to the Potions master, who turned his gaze upon him, lip curled. Then Potter and Weasley entered the room.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for being late," snarled Snape.

They didn't appear to care. They were too busy glaring at Hermione and him, and he noticed that Hermione seemed to be glaring at him a bit too.

"What are you doing?" he muttered while Snape addressed the class.

"Glaring at you," she informed him, managing to keep up that activity as she copied down the notes for the potion they would be making.

"Why?" he whispered, making a louder noise than he meant to when he slammed his cauldron down on the table.

"Are you _trying_ to make things worse?" she asked under her breath.

"For you, you mean?" he asked. "You know, seeing as I'm pretending to date you and all, you'd think we'd progressed past the wilful making-each-other's-lives-hell thing."

"You're sitting with me! They'll take it as a personal 'stuff you' to them!"

"Yeah, I'm sitting with you. I'm cramming as much affection as possible into the shortest time possible, so that we can end this and I can stop being terrified that the Death Eaters are going to come and kill me for dating a muggleborn!"

Her eyes seemed to soften slightly, as she noted, "You didn't call me a Mudblood, for once."

"Don't get used to it," he snarled in her ear.

"I won't," she said coolly. "But really, you're doing a wonderful job of pretending. Look around, Malfoy."

He did. Everyone was staring at them, Snape included. He realised that he and Hermione had been arguing – quietly – for a few minutes. 'Couples don't argue,' he reminded himself.

His arm settled around the back of her chair. She stiffened slightly, but concentrated on Snape, who continued to speak without calling them up for their conversation. Once everyone started bustling around to prepare their own potions, they could talk again.

"Are you truly in this?" he whispered. "Or is your participation just half-hearted. Because, Hermione, you need to choose."

She glanced at Potter and Weasley – Weasley especially – who were staring at her. Then she looked back at him, and he was struck by how incredibly fiery she looked. "Oh, I'm all in all right."

"Wonderful," he said, dropping some sort of tongue in her cauldron. She looked faintly disgusted, but added a handful of what looked like chopped liver. When Draco glanced back at the board, he realised that indeed, it _had_ been chopped liver. "That's disgusting."

"Bring it up with Snape, not me," said Hermione, smiling slightly. Her hand snaked in front of his to borrow his silver dagger. He didn't mind. It was all for the sake of their little plan.

He noticed Weasley's eyes upon them from across the room, and smirked. He caught Hermione's wrist, lying on the table as she sprinkled some sort of foul smelling ingredient into their potion. She glanced up at him, confused. He grinned at her, noting how surprised she seemed. He'd obviously not smiled at her often enough. He'd have to change that, if his role was to be successful. She smiled hesitantly back, and he leant in and murmured in her ear, "Weasley's watching." She laughed, as if he'd told her a joke, but he noticed her eyebrows meet as she flicked a worried glance Weasley's way. Well, he couldn't have that, could he? He used a lazy finger to remove the hair from her face, and he pressed his lips to her cheek. Yes, cheek. He was playing it safe. Snape wouldn't take it too well if he kissed her in the middle of class.

"People are watching," she giggled, both of them knowing full well that Weasley and Potter could hear them perfectly.

"Let them watch," he said, his arm settling around her shoulders. Under usual circumstances, he would be cringing at the _thought_ of such an action, let alone his lips touching her. But, in the name of showing everyone that they were idiots, he supposed he could abandon his morals and reasoning for a little while.

When they delivered a flask of their bright green potion to Snape's desk, cleaned up, and left the Potions dungeon and hour later, Hermione muttered, "I thought you said you'd keep your mouth away from me."

"Couldn't resist. You should have seen Weasley's face," he replied, bumping against her slightly as Potter and Weasley passed.

"We had a rule," she reminded him.

"And under normal circumstances I would follow it," he said, repeating his thoughts to her. "But as of now, circumstances are _definitely_ not normal."

"So you're going to kiss me whenever Ron annoys you?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

"You're funny, Granger," he said sarcastically, pulling her closer to him. "And maybe I will. Perhaps we'll drive him insane."

"Malfoy! You can't! You are an insufferable-"

He kissed her, on the lips this time. Her eyebrows raised even though her eyes were closed, and he was amused to see that she responded. And... it wasn't really so bad. Perhaps Krum had been a better teacher for her than he'd assumed. He couldn't help, of course, but be a little disgusted by the contact, but the horrified looks on Potter and Weasley's faces more than made up for it.

* * *

_Author's Note: Yes, another one. I'm sorry. Just wondering if you guys have latched onto what the 'plan' is yet, seeing as they're acting together which is what they don't want... It will become clear in the next chapter, just so you don't comment and go 'uh, that's retarded'. It'll make sense. Hopefully. _


	3. The Brilliant Persuasive Powers of Draco

_Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in the update. I've got a Drama production in the works which is eating up my time a tad. But only a tad. Hopefully faster updates next time. _

_Now, this chapter is kind of pointless dialogue, and there's a lot of it too. I wanted some sort of connection between Draco and Hermione. And by the way, Draco is basically jerking Hermione along with the 'I'm going to die! He's going to come kill me!' thing. For the most part. Just keep that in mind._

_Okay, sorry. I've rambled enough. Thank you to all who have reviewed, favourited, alert-ed, etc. Much appreciated. Enjoy._

_Chapter 3_

The Marvellous Persuasive Powers of Draco Malfoy

Draco Malfoy had always suspected something of a conspiracy against him. In fact, he spent a great deal of the time that he ought to be using to do Slytherin-y things thinking up possible conspiracies that he had noticed. Perhaps he was a little paranoid. Perhaps it was just a Malfoy thing. But when his tie started to tighten and choke him, he underwent an astounding epiphany which basically resulted in him realising that he was a psychic genius rather than a paranoid jackass, and that he had been absolutely right about the tie thing. _This_ conspiracy had a little less to do with the school than he had suspected, though. It had more to do with the two small hands that were viciously pulling him by his tie and possibly trying to strangle him in the process, too.

"Hermione!" he choked, clutching his hands to his throat and fruitlessly scrabbling for the edge of the fabric that had his life slipping before his very eyes.

A door slammed. He would have looked around to see where they were, but he was too busy dying, and besides, his eyes had probably exploded by the pressure on his throat. Suddenly, the pressure was terminated. It was instant, blissful, breathing-y paradise. He ended his paradise with shooting his most withering-est glare at the small thing standing there hissing like an angry cat.

"You tried to kill me," he said.

"You kissed me! You said you wouldn't! And you did! Then you said you wouldn't again! But you _did_! Are you an impulsive liar or something or do you just get a kick out of grossing me out!" She clawed at her tongue a little, although he was _pretty_ certain he hadn't gone anywhere near it. _That_ was for another day, he thought with a small smirk.

"Oh, come on. You saw their faces. And don't admit you didn't mind it _that_ much," he said, glancing around the Charms classroom and leaning against one of the desks.

"I need to be vaccinated," she muttered, gagging a bit.

"Erm, overreaction much? And flattering, by the way. You're really making my ego _skyrocket _with your praise of my-"

"Snogging prowess?" she asked incredulously. "Oh, I think Pansy Parkinson could write you a recommendation if you want it that much."

He glared at her. She glared back. Draco had a strange feeling that if he'd happened to see the red head of Weaselbee, or the prominent fat one of Potter, he might have just kissed her again.

"Okay," she said, in a tone that was all matter-of-fact and probably not very good for Draco. "What if I say I'm out?"

Draco sighed. "Then I will die a slow bloody death with a side plate of intense torturous pain on the side at the hands of Lord Voldemort. You think he would take kindly to a _Malfoy_, the son of one of the most eminent Death Eaters, fraternising with a muggleborn? Oh, and for the record, now that we've been emphasising it for our little charade, that's just gonna make him want to throw a _party_."

"So you're trying to guilt-trip me into playing along?" she asked, folding her arms.

"Nope. Merely informing you of the state that my existence will be in if you abandon me as you're suggesting."

She looked at him for a moment, and if he hadn't known better, he might have thought she looked a little amused. He liked it, and it surprised him. _He_, Draco Malfoy, Slytherin Prince and heir to the Malfoy throne, did _not_, on any account, amuse – let alone _enjoy_ amusing – Hermione Granger, the know-it-all brainiac, one third of the Golden Trio. It just wasn't how things worked. It was against the foundations of all they'd gone on during their schooling years. It was going up against some of the most important facts of Hogwarts, spitting in their faces and rubbing them into the dirt. It was ridiculous. It was unheard of. It was... happening.

"Malfoy," she began, shaking her head but with a smile still on her face. "You are... you want me to... to pretend to be... and you think I'm going..."

"Full sentences would be nice," he interjected.

"You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend for an indefinite amount of time?" she asked, just to clarify.

"It would be greatly appreciated, yes."

"And then... when we've got them convinced, I get to dump you painfully in front of them all to dash all rumours well and truly into the ground?"

"Exactly... hey, wait a second! I thought we agreed that _I_ get to dump _you_!" he interrupted indignantly.

"Um, I don't think so," she said, leaning against Flitwick's desk. "You think I'm going to go through all this, and not get some ounce of compensation for what you're going to put me through?"

"Uh, yeah. Don't pretend you hated it so much, Granger. I _distinctively_ felt your tongue."

"Excuse me?" She sounded _scandalised_. Draco found that he rather liked the colour her face went when she was scandalised.

"Tongue. You know, that moving thing in your mouth that was trying to get into _my_ mouth."

"I know what a tongue is, and I'm perfectly assured of the fact that my tongue was absolutely immobile during that little display of yours. And for your insolence, I'm dumping you."

"No!"

She sneered at him, and said sarcastically, "What, bad for your street cred?"

"Yes," sulked Draco, crossing his arms.

Hermione fiddled with something on Flitwick's desk, and then glanced up. "I'll consider it. You realise that if you dump me, Harry and Ron and Ginny and possibly Neville Longbottom will come after you and kick your butt?"

"Learn to say ass, Granger. But yeah, I'm willing to take that risk. What do you say?"

"That you've got some compensating to do," she said, standing up.

"Sorry, my mouth's already had its work out for today. You might have to stand in line," he said cockily, sliding behind the desk and drumming his fingers on it.

"Don't stress yourself, Malfoy," she snapped. "What's the bet you won't be able to control yourself and you'll end up doing it again, anyway? Actually, I had in mind a different sort of compensation."

"Merlin, Granger. I didn't take you for _that_ type. I'm not a gigolo. Sorry."

She ignored him, using her wand to write on the chalkboard. Draco had a good view of her behind, not that he was looking or anything. Gross. He just understood why the nerds sat in the front now.

"Wow, Granger. Liking the teacher/student thing we've got going here. Kinky, isn't it?"

"If you're trying to lighten the mood, Malfoy, it isn't working. Actually, all you've managed to do is turn my stomach and scar me for life," she said without turning around.

"What, with the naked images of me that flashed across your mind when I said the word 'kinky'?" he said knowingly, delicately stepping over the 'inappropriate and likely to get Draco bopped in the head' line and into dangerous territory. Her eyebrows raised, the eyes below them suddenly started hissing and spitting and hurling imaginary but sharp darts at him, and her mouth was set in a straight line. As a precaution, he considered casting _Expelliarmus_ to rid her of her wand while she was looking like that around him, but guessed it wouldn't end too well for him. A wise choice, too, because the wand stayed in the sleeve but the cards did not.

"What if I say no?"

"Then my untimely death will be on your conscious for the rest of your life... or until the Death Eaters decide to add you to their list."

"They have a list?" she asked, sounding a little disbelieving.

"Oh yeah, they pin it on the wall and throw darts at the names. And you know, it's actually written in blood and everything."

"Wow. That's got to be upping the volunteer numbers." Draco listened to her calm voice, but could see the barely-concealed terror on her face.

"Hermione..." he began hesitantly. "Please, would-"

"Are you exaggerating?" she cut in.

He gave her an odd look. "Why would I exaggerate, Granger? To make out with you in public on purpose?"

"Hey! You never said anything about making out!"

It was then that he knew that she was wrapped around his little finger.

"Don't think you've got me wrapped around your little finger, just because I'm agreeing to this!" said Hermione, pointing _her_ finger at him.

"I don't," he said innocently, and followed her out of the room.

Potter and Weasley were there, arms crossed, glaring at them both.

"Hi," said Hermione shortly.

Draco took the opportunity to take about a foot off his total height by crouching down _really_ low behind Hermione. She was way too short.

"Hermione," began Potter. "We need to talk to you-"

"What are you _thinking_?" demanded Weasley. "How could you do this to us? I thought we were your friends! It isn't fair that you've deserted us like this!"

"I've deserted you?" she asked, sounding puzzled. Damn Weasley! Damn Weasley and his stupid redheaded powers of persuasion!

"Yes!"

She gave a shrug. "Sorry."

At that moment, watching Hermione openly defy her two best friends for him, he would have hugged her. If he hadn't been in danger of contracting some strange disease, that is.

She looked all scary defiant. He was glad he wasn't on the wrong side of her wrath for once. You'd think he would have grown immune to her steely gaze after so many years, but obviously not. He would have felt a little sorry for them if they weren't such jerks. Although, for once, Weasley took prime position rather than a measly second. Potter was usually the one who ticked Draco off the most. That thought made him wonder why it was ticking him off that Weasley was being such a loser. Perhaps he was bonded with her, now that she was saving his life and all. He hoped not. Any type of bonds are trouble, marriage included.

Not that he was connecting _marriage_ with Hermione Granger and _him_. No. Definitely not. He was drawing on another failed bond... that of his parents. But no marrying Hermione Granger for him. No sirree.

"Are you okay, Mal- erm, Draco... are you okay, Draco?" asked Hermione tentatively.

Potter and Weasley continued with the glaring. Their focus was actually pretty amazing. He would have gotten bored by now.

"I'm fine," he said hastily. "_Sweetheart_." Ron glared at him balefully as Draco put his arm around Hermione's shoulders and pulled her closer to him. To her credit, she didn't squirm or hex him or anything.

"Well, _sweetheart_, we'll leave you in peace," said Ron sarcastically, and stormed off in the opposite direction. Potter threw her one last big-man glare, and followed.

"Ah, jeez. They're tools, both of them."

"They used to be my best friends."

Hermione walked out from under his arm, away to the library. He assumed the library, at least, and not the Prefects' bathroom or something. Although, that wouldn't be entirely implausible, seeing as she was a Prefect and... well, human. But he preferred to think the library. Less... unsanitary.

Well, what could he do? He wasn't exactly going to _follow_ her or anything, was he?

He followed her.

She walked through the shelves until she had found a thick one where the carpet was barely faded and the books were dustiest. Draco stood in the next aisle, watching her through the gaps at the top of the books. She sat down, selected a random book, and started to read.

"_That_ was anticlimactic," he said sarcastically under his breath.

"Malfoy, what are you doing?"

He hadn't realised she had been watching. Obviously. Otherwise, he might have chosen _not_ to be staring at her so blatantly.

"I am perusing the shelves to find an apt tome for-"

"Big words aren't going to put me off, Malfoy. I'm the Queen of the Synonym. Now, how about telling me the truth? Our relationship isn't going to work if it's built on a foundation of lies." There was a glint in her eyes and she seemed to be, well, _mocking him_. Who would dare?

"I wanted to see if you were okay," he admitted.

He mentally prepared himself for a year's worth of cruel mocking. He wasn't quite sure how to prepare, so he just sang himself a song to distract him from the insults that would come.

"Thanks," came the soft voice. She sounded sad. Draco was busy singing his song for a few seconds before he realised that the mocking was... nonexistent.

"Erm... so, are you?"

"Am I okay? Yeah, I think so."

"Okay."

He stood there, kind of nervous and feeling kind of awkward. He didn't want to be _friends_ with her or anything, but it couldn't hurt to have her feeling a little compassionate towards him.

"So. What are you reading?"

She held up a very thick, very dusty book. It looked familiar, somehow.

"Is that-"

"Yep."

He walked around so that they were in the same aisle, and slid down beside her. "We have that at the manor. I think I'm the only one who ever read all of those books."

"Do you like it? This book?"

He thought for a moment, trying to remember it. "Yeah, I think so. I thought it was a little unrealistic, but hey, when there's a wand in your hand, what's stopping you?"

"From writing complete crap? Absolutely nothing."

"You hated it?"

"Hate. Present tense. I promised that I'd give it another try."

"Who did you promise?" He was actually interested. Did she had a book buddy or something? Or... _a man_! A studied man who she could trade book stories with and force to reread long, complicated books...

"Myself," she said, flipping a page. He watched her eyes straying across the page briefly before they returned to focus on his face.

"Why not just stop?"

"Because I've got to read every book in this library before I leave school," she explained.

_No, that isn't crazy at all._

"No need to rush, you know. You could always break in and steal them after you've left. Or even better, summon them all after you graduate and depart with an army of flying books after you."

She grinned. "That creates an interesting mental image. But no, I have a goal."

"Okey dokey. I'll leave you to it." He climbed to his feet, wincing slightly at the fluff on his new trousers. Before he raced back to the Slytherin common room to sanitise his entire body, he stuck his head back around the shelf. "You know, you should try again. Concentrate very hard. It'll make more sense."

She nodded, and he left. There was a thought plaguing him. He had voluntarily followed and spoken to Hermione Granger. Could that mean that perhaps he _didn't_ hate her? That perhaps he wouldn't mind being civil, even if his life – kind of – didn't depend on it? Well, there wasn't much he could do about that now, because his father's owl was perched regally on the window sill, waiting for him.

* * *

_Author's Note: Hi again. Sorry for the lame cliffhanger. We'll get the extent of Lucius Malfoy's wrath in the next chapter. Reviews are much needed... hint hint _

* * *


	4. An Ominous Letter

_Author's Note: My apologies for the delay, and for the shortness of the chapter. It's about 1000 words less than the usual chapters, but I thought it was fitting to end it there. _

_Thank you to those of you who have been checking the updated chapters and comment every time. You guys all make my day._

* * *

_Chapter 4_

An Ominous Letter

The sight of the owl on the window sill sent a shiver down his spine, a shiver that was basically screaming, 'Run! Run now! Dude, run while you can!' Draco had extensive experience with voices in his head, so he ignored it. He tentatively took a step forward. The owl turned its yellow eyes upon him, trying to stare him down. Jeez, it resembled his father. It even had the haughty posture thing going on. He took another step forward.

"Draco," said Blaise. "That wouldn't happen to be your father's owl, would it?"

"No, it's Viktor Krum's. We're pen pals."

Draco took a half step back. The owl gave an angry hoot. He hastily made up the distance he had lost, stepping a little closer to the owl.

"Don't be so sarcastic. I was simply asking. Shouldn't you take the letter?"

"I probably should, but that doesn't mean I _want_ to. Or will," Draco said, eyeing up the owl uneasily as it opened its beak.

"It doesn't look very happy," observed Blaise, all safe and warm in his armchair near the fire. Draco, on the other hand, was freezing, both from the open window and from the atmosphere that sprung into being whenever his father was mentioned.

"No, really, Sherlock?"

"Sorry?"

Draco took a moment out of his freak-out to roll his eyes at Blaise's lack of knowledge about Muggle literature. It was actually a little embarrassing. Draco had been raised in a high-class wizarding family, yet he had a fairly decent understanding of most Muggle concepts. He'd devoured Muggle books like they were caviar.

"You really ought to get the letter, Draco. The room is getting cold from the window."

"Didn't you open it for the bird?" asked Draco, removing his eyes from the owl to look at Blaise. He was a bit worried that it was going to go for his face, his precious face.

"It opened it itself, Draco. _That's_ why you ought to take the letter. That stupid bird could probably Avada Kedavra you with its eyes."

"That's ridiculous-" Draco began to reply, but was cut off by a flurry of wings and movement as the owl flew at Blaise. "Oh, Merlin."

Blaise was letting out a series of consecutive, high-pitched shrieks. Draco didn't blame him. He was terrified just standing in the same room. The owl probably had momentum, and would just keep going at Draco for the heck of it. It was scary, because Blaise had probably been right. He didn't dare hex the thing, despite Blaise's frequent yells of 'Curse it! Draco, freakin' _kill it_!'

Blaise ran from the room. The owl perched on Draco's shoulder, digging its talons into his expensive school robes. He took a breath, and plucked the white letter from the bird's leg. With that, the thing gave him one final, sizzling glare, and flew out the window. Draco shut it firmly, in case it was having any idiotic bird-thoughts of coming back to fully get its revenge upon Blaise. He sat on the window seat and looked at the black Malfoy crest on the seal for a moment, before he split it open. The note was unfolded, with his slightly-shaking hands, and scanned with appalled eyes.

'_Draco,_'

'_If you have hexed my owl like you did last time, I will Crucio you until you bleed out your ears._'

"Charming, as always," he muttered.

'_I have hard, solid proof that you have been in contact with the Mudblood. I am disgusted. I thought you knew better. Perhaps a meeting with a few of my friends would do you both good? Or even better... the entire disappearance of the girl altogether?_'

He felt his eyes widen, his throat tighten. He'd been under the impression that his father would aim for him, but threatening Hermione's life... that was going a step or ten too far. The scariest thing was that he probably _would_ do it, with the wave of a wand and a muttered incantation and a flash of blinding green light and a thump as Hermione's lifeless body fell to the floor...

He would not let it happen.

'_Stay on your toes. Know that you are being monitored. Whatever you're doing can only end badly. Stop it immediately._'

The letter was signed with a large flourish, and another stamp of the Malfoy crest. Draco hurled the paper into the fire, breathing heavily. His father wanted Hermione killed. Well, obviously. He wanted _all_ muggleborns killed. This, as far as he knew, was the first that he had actually taken action against.

"Draco," said Blaise cheerfully, wandering out into the common room. His short hair was perfect. Draco guessed that he'd spent the past three minutes redoing it.

"Yes, Blaise?"

"Tell your father that his bird is a sadist."

"I would, but I don't intent on exchanging any form of communication with him for the next ten or so years," said Draco, standing up and straightening his shirt.

"Or until you need money, you mean," inserted Blaise knowingly. "So, what was with the letter? When was the last time he owled you?"

"First year, when he was scolding me for not making friends with Potter and switching him to 'our side'," said Draco, recalling the long, long letter that he had received – and spent an hour trying to set alight with the scant knowledge of magic he had back then.

"I remember that... and you exploded the bird?"

"Well, it's fine _now_, isn't it?" said Draco, a little disgruntled. He hadn't _really_ meant to blow up the owl. His wand had just sensed the frustration in him and taken things into its own wandy little hands.

"You would think so," muttered Blaise. "Perhaps a little screwed up in the head?"

"I take full credit for that proudly," said Draco, and left the common room. He would be able to consider this letter a lot better without Blaise praising him for his exploding skills. He aimlessly wandered more or less in the direction of the library, a place where he more or less was certain that he'd find a particular someone who he needed to talk to. In other words, he raced to the library, pausing only to fix his hair, and sat opposite Hermione, breathing heavily.

"Yes?" she asked without looking up.

"Hermione..." he panted. "My father... sent a letter... sending Death Eaters..."

She immediately closed the book she was reading – coincidentally, the very book he had told her that she should try again – and looked at him. She was alert and worried. He could see that much in her eyes.

"Are you okay?"

Regaining control over his breathing, he could reply more or less calmly, "It's not _me_ they're after."

If he had been told by some girl he hated – for example, Granger – that her father's Death Eater friends were coming for him, he would have been terrified. He had seen firsthand what Death Eaters are capable of, but that was no excuse for Hermione. She had too, being friends with Potty and Weasley and all. She _knew_ how cruel they were, and yet the only outward sign of being shaken that she showed was a slight intake of breath.

"Are _you_ okay?" he asked this time.

"I'm fine," she said, springing to her feet and dashing around to another shelf. He watched through the shelf. Her hands were a blur as she pulled a dozen books off the shelf with incredibly agility, and made a pile on the ground as she turned to face the next shelf to ransack.

"What are you doing? I mean, I've heard of people doing weird things to relieve stress, but isn't this taking it a little far?"

Without turning around, she responded, "Well, I need to train up, don't I?"

"For what?"

She lugged an armful of books back to her sitting area, and stacked them around her. "If the Death Eaters are after me, I ought to be able to defend myself."

"You can't take on a team of Death Eaters," he informed her. "You should go see Dumbledore."

"How on earth would they get into Hogwarts?" she asked, flipping open a book and concentrating on it as if he were too stupid to merit eye contact. "I need to be able to protect myself and my family away from the school, in the holidays and such."

"You could get a guard," he suggested. "That Order thing that you have."

She was instantly suspicious. "How did you know about that?"

"I've been invited to join, of course," he said calmly. "So what about it?"

"I think the Order have more important assignments than to babysit an insignificant girl, Malfoy," she scoffed. "You know, world safety and such."

He groaned slightly. Insignificant? "You aren't insignificant, Hermione. You're one of Potter's best friends. _You_ saw what happened when he thought Sirius Black was in danger, and he'd only known him for two years. He's known you longer, and therefore probably likes you more too. Apart from the fact that you're a clever witch and have prevented Voldemort taking over a multitude of times, your being in danger would put everyone else in danger too because of Potter's idiocy."

She stared at him. "Done ranting?"

"Almost."

"Well, don't let me disturb you." She continued to read.

Draco continued anyway. He knew she was still listening. "Really, Hermione, it's not like nobody would _care_ if you died. I'm sure the Order could spare a guard or two. It's-"

She held up her hands, the palms facing him. He closed his mouth sulkily, and she said, "You've made your point. You can stop talking now."

He folded his arms stubbornly. He was going to wait until she was a little more reasonable. Although she had acknowledged his point, she didn't look like she was thinking about it at all. Also, she was still reading through a spell book at hyperspeed.

"Hermione!" he half-yelled. "Were you even listening to me?"

"What? Sorry, I was trying to count up how many times you've called me by my first name in the past ten minutes." She was smirking a little. She was mocking him. He found it slightly amusing.

"Is it a problem? I could always revert to calling you Granger, Granger." He smirked right back at her. They both knew that she preferred Hermione, and they both knew that Draco was kidding. It was strange, that they could kid without getting wands involved.

"Hermione's fine, Malfoy," she said primly, closing her book but leaving a finger in it to hold the page she had been reading from. "Would you like the favour returned, or is the surname fine for you?"

"Oh, it's no favour, _Hermione_," he said. "You're free to call me what you will." Her mouth opened, forming the first syllable of what he presumed was going to be a _very_ insulting word, but he quickly interrupted her with, "Except that. Didn't know you had such a range of insults at your tongue."

"You'd be surprised," she said dryly.

"Have Potter and Weasley been filthifying your innocent mind?"

"Filthifying? Erm, of course they have."

"Shut up. There aren't enough words in the English language to accommodate my conversational needs, so I need to invent my own," he explained.

"How about 'contaminating'?" she suggested.

He scowled. "If I'd have thought of that, it would have been the perfect word."

"Well, remember it for next time," she said, in a way that would have been irritating and prim if not for the smile on her face.

"Will do. So, please ask the Order about getting a guard," he said, trying to do that weird staring thing that she seemed to be able to do so well.

"Fine," she sighed, as he stood up and left the library.

Well, he couldn't let that satisfy him. He had to go to a higher power, and it would require a lot of willpower. He took a breath and scowled before he took a turn that would lead him away from the Slytherin common room and towards his destination. This was going to do wonders for his reputation. He rolled his eyes slightly, as he spotted his target.

Standing himself briskly before the person, he said quickly, "We need to talk. It's about Hermione."

"I'm listening," said the person, as a grimace adorned their features.

Draco opened his mouth, and began to talk. This had better work. It had to. He would make sure of it.

* * *

_Author's Note: Again, a lame cliffhanger. There are only a few possibilities of the people it could be, so it isn't that intriguing or mysterious or whatever... but I wanted to end it there anyway. Updating soon. Reviews appreciated._


	5. The Birthday Wishes Bestowed

_Author's Note: Hello again, for the second time today. To make up for the short chapter that I posted earlier, I've given you another equally short but rather important one. _

_This chapter is dedicated to my best friend, unofficial beta and constant support, Kimbibly. She is seriously awesome. Could kick your butt with her hands behind her back, too. She makes me smile.__Chapter 5_

* * *

The Birthday Wishes Bestowed

Draco Malfoy was in a terrible mood. In fact, 'terrible' wasn't a descriptive enough adjective to describe his state of being. It was a disgusting mood, a foul one, a mood to rival all previous bad moods that came before it. It was a whopper, that bad mood, and it was a bit troublesome that it had come on a day which he usually would have enjoyed.

You see, Draco's bad mood generally came without warning, swooping in through the window or tickling him under the chin as he woke up each morning. They could hit at any possible time, at the trigger of even the merest encounter with someone he only vaguely disliked. It was a bit disturbing, actually. But today of all days, he had a good reason.

It was Draco's birthday.

He was being rather savage with his clothes, stepping over the monumental stack of gifts to get to the mirror. Even his reflection was bugging him. It scowled back at him, as if irritated by his lack of interest in the present. His reflection liked presents. Usually, Draco would too, but not today. Today he was just mad.

"Happy birthday, Drakey," cooed Pansy Parkinson as he skidded down the stairs into the common room. She pressed a green wrapped present to his chest, and let her finger trace a squiggling line down the front of his jumper...

He jumped backwards and charmed the present upstairs. He wasn't very careful with it. He had a feeling he may have accidentally sent it towards the fireplace rather than the stack... but that couldn't be helped. Besides, he would _never_ do such a thing on purpose, would he?

"Aren't you going to open it now?" she asked, her bottom lip jutting out in a pout as she folded her arms across her chest.

"Nope."

He sat in an armchair and started tying his shoes.

"Why not?"

He moved onto tightening his tie.

"Coz."

That done, he stood up and slung his schoolbag over his shoulder. He didn't want to have to come back to this place between breakfast and classes.

"What are you doing?"

"Breakfast," he said, in a grunt that would have impressed Crabbe. Not Goyle, though. Goyle was the master of the grunts. Nobody could better him.

"I mean, in your clothes."

Draco was appalled. It was bad enough that she had to make all of her frequent, obvious passes at him. It was the icing on the cake – if you'll pardon the birthday pun – that she was asking him to go down to breakfast stark naked. Now _that_ would be a sight to see. The horrified look he could imagine on Hermione's face almost – only almost – rid him of his bad mood.

"I generally prefer to keep them on, Parkinson," he said, striding to the door. "You know, they keep the chill out."

"It's Sunday, silly," she giggled, racing over to him and grabbing him by the tie. She pulled him back towards the dormitory – another gross pass – and up the stairs.

Sunday. Of course. Seeing as the day before had been Saturday, today would generally be accepted as Sunday. The day of rest. The Sabbath or something, for those ridiculous Muggles. As in, no school on a Sunday. No classes. A day of wandering around boredly, worried that he was going to get the news that the Death Eaters had penetrated Hogwarts' forces and kill Hermione. _That_ would be a _great_ birthday present, he thought sarcastically.

Then he realised that Pansy Parkinson was trying to remove his clothing.

"Do you mind?" he snapped, glancing over at Blaise's prostrate form.

It was too late. Blaise sat up, yawned, looked over at Draco, and raised one dark eyebrow with the precision acquired over many years. Draco squirmed away from Pansy, standing on the other side of the room with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

"Morning Blaise!" she sang. "Just helping Drakey change! Silly boy, he forgot that his birthday was on a Sunday!"

"Oh, that reminds me," said Blaise, springing gracefully from his bed – shirtless, which Parkinson was taking great pleasure in – and handed Draco an envelope. "Happy birthday, Draco."

He knew what it would be without looking. Blaise was like old society men, who go to the birthday parties of their friends' grandchildren, give them a cheque and spend the whole party ignoring the cake and talking business. Draco had experience with it, because he'd had many such parties attended by men who he knew now as Death Eaters, talking 'business' in the corners of Malfoy Manor.

"Thank you, Blaise. I'm going to change now."

Parkinson took the hint and left – but not before spotting the little green wrapped box starting to catch alight on the edge of the fireplace, and throwing an almighty tantrum down the stairs. Draco pulled the curtains around the edge of his bed, and changed into something a little more Sunday-y. In Muggle clothes, jeans and a sweater, he tried to leave the common room for the second time today, and was successful.

He made his way through the corridors to the Great Hall, strategically choosing the less frequented ones which would be less likely to spring a Slytherin on him. Today, he wanted to avoid them most of all. They were always terrible on birthdays, like being another year older was kid stuff, something to be ashamed of. Well, living in a world that had civilisation slipping from its fingertips, in his opinion, getting through another year alive was an achievement to be celebrated. Just not today. Not for him.

The Gryffindor table was full. His eyes scanned it automatically, just making sure to pick out the brunette with the wild hair who was almost certainly hiding behind a book. She wasn't there. There was Potter, and there was Weasley, but no Hermione. His stomach dropped to somewhere below his ankles but above his toes, and he hastily stood up.

"Happy birthday," came a voice from behind him.

He whipped around. Hermione was standing there, lopsided from a bookbag on her right shoulder, standing there with the wild hair and the raised eyebrows.

"Oh, thank Merlin," he muttered. "Thanks."

"Did you get many gifts?" she asked, taking a step towards him.

He stepped over the bench. "A few, yeah."

"And it's... er, been a nice birthday so far?"

Another step.

"Quite."

He took a step as well. If this was going to keep happening, they'd better cut their conversation short or else they'd run into each other. Unless that was the aim...

She looked kind of nervous. It was amusing. He saw her eyes glance towards the Gryffindor table, and she smiled slightly.

"We worked it out, you know. Ron and Harry and I."

"Oh really? How nice for you," he said, a little dryly.

They still looked suspicious, though.

"Do they know?" he asked, taking another step towards her and whispering in her ear.

"I don't think so. But they've had a whole change of perspective. I'm so glad. They must have been talking to one another. Well, I'm going to go... erm, that way. I'll see you later, I guess."

He wasn't sure why his heart fell a little. Probably because she was amusing to talk to, and he didn't want their communication cut off so soon. Perhaps because he knew she'd been going back to _them. _Possibly because he hadn't gotten a chance to exploit their fake relationship and _really_ rub his father's face in this. And maybe, just maybe, because he knew that it would have to end soon. For her safety.

"Have a good birthday, Draco." Her voice came out of nowhere, because she was at the Gryffindor table, laughing at something Weasley had said, the very next second.

He looked around, a little bewildered, and then unsteadily took his seat again. His food was tasteless, because he knew that as soon as the mail arrived, his mood would blacken again and any enjoyment would be sucked from the day. It was pointless to bother trying to enjoy it now.

A few Slytherins arrived, to greet him and give him their best wishes with a taunting glint in their eyes. He ignored them, for the most part, and took his business elsewhere. By 'elsewhere', he meant to the library, a place where he was fairly sure Hermione would appear – so he could keep an eye on her – and a place where he hoped no Slytherins would visit. It was a win-win situation.

He dodged Theodore Nott and skirted into the deserted final shelf. His fingers wandered along the spines of the books on the lowest shelf, until he found the browning – originally gold – one that Hermione had been reading. He flipped it open, leaning it against his knees until he found the page he wanted.

"Oh, jeez, sorry," mumbled a girl as she almost tripped over him.

"It's fine," he said, glancing up at her.

She was quite short, and had a very tall stack of books balanced in her arms. He recognised the Ravenclaw tie, and the face that had been distorted when she'd been in a yelling match with Hermione in the Great Hall a few days previously.

"Hi... you're Kim, right?"

She gazed at him, cool and collected. He had to remind himself that basically everyone _not_ in Slytherin didn't like him very much. "That's me."

"I recognised you from in the Great Hall the other day," he explained.

She flushed. He didn't think it was anything to be ashamed of. Getting in an academic argument with Hermione Granger, and coming very close to winning, as well. He was too afraid to try it. He might get his pretty head bitten off.

"What were you fighting about?"

"The origin of a speech given by- never mind. You don't care."

"What makes you think that?" he asked, closing his book and sitting up.

"Well, you're Draco Malfoy," she explained.

"You know my name. I'm touched."

The girl, Kim, sighed. "Why are you talking to me? You never talk to _anyone_." She added as an afterthought, "Except Hermione."

"Are you friends?"

"With Hermione? Sure."

"Despite the yelling?"

She rolled her eyes. "A healthy debate. Erm, if you don't mind..."

She made to walk away, but Draco stopped her. "Can you, uh, give her this?" He slipped a note into his hand. Her fingers enclosed upon it and she slipped it into her pocket.

"Sure."

As she wandered away, Draco called after her, "It was nice to meet you, Kim."

He had decided that maybe being not-hated wouldn't be such a bad thing after all. Kim stuck her head back around and grinned at him. "Yeah, you too."

He resumed his reading, smiling faintly. Five minutes later, Hermione stormed up to him, the note scrunched in her fist.

"You did _what_?"

"Talked to Potter and Weasley," he said sheepishly, shrinking against the wall slightly.

She leant on the wall beside him, glaring down at him. Her hair was all wild and her eyes were fiery. He felt exceptionally sorry for himself, having incurred such wrath.

"You're in danger," he said defensively. "They can help."

"Sorry, I'm still marvelling at the fact that you _spoke_ to them," she said.

Suddenly, Draco realised that the 'anger' on her face was more incredulity. She was amazed that he'd stooped to speaking to them for her. Actually, so was he.

She slid down the wall until she was sitting beside him. "Thanks," she added.

"Anytime," he replied.

She sighed. "They had a chat to me. And Kim gave me your note."

"Chat? Oh, I didn't want a chat. Can I beat them up?"

"I'd rather you didn't," she said dryly. She gestured to the book in his hands. "Taking your own advice? Trying it again?"

He nodded, running his finger lightly along the spine. "It isn't half bad, either."

She tapped the front cover. "What are you doing, stuck in a library reading a stodgy old book, on your _birthday_ of all days?"

He shrugged. "I had things on my mind."

"So you read?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

She leant in. For a second, he thought she was going to kiss his cheek or something. But of course not. She whispered, "Look. We've got an audience."

He glanced sideways. There were a group of girls, all staring quite pointedly at them. He rolled his eyes. Hermione looked disgusted.

"Should we go somewhere else?" he suggested.

She nodded emphatically, and Draco stood up. That's where he made his mistake. He held out his hand thoughtlessly, to help her to stand. He'd been bred as a gentleman, after all. And she accepted it, her warm hand closing around his as he easily lifted her to a standing position. The girls all tittered, and Hermione grimaced.

"Am I allowed to hex them?" she growled in Draco's ear.

"I don't think that would be wise," he responded gently. "Now, I need to talk to you."

She sighed. "About the guard?"

"You've really got to be very careful. They're all very clever."

"The Death Eaters?" she asked. She leant in slightly, and said quickly, in one rush of breath, "Draco, I told you I was all in, didn't I?" With that, she reached up and pressed her lips to his. Draco could hear the excited giggling and gasps of horror from the girls, and could feel Hermione grimacing, but he was more concerned with that fact that one of her arms was around his neck, the other hand on his chest, and that their bodies were extraordinarily close together, and that _his_ hands were at her back, and they were both kissing each other. Still. It had been a pretty long time, and they were still going. In fact, it _could_ be called making out, by some.

"Happy birthday," she whispered in his ear, before all of the heat from his front where she was been pressed disappeared and she vanished out the door of the library.

Perhaps this birthday wasn't so bad after all.


	6. Just Hermione

_Author's Note: Hello, all. This chapter is quite long, I think, to make up for the not-so-long previous two. _

_I meant to say in my last Author's Note that I've taken a bit of a creative liberty with the date of Draco's birthday, which is actually suppose to be June 5, I think, which would be in the holidays or at the end of the year, neither or which the story is set in. So, that's why the date's all funky. Just so you know._

_Also, a little note for anyone who is waiting for an update of 'A Long Year'... it's coming, slowly, yes, but it's coming. _

_Well, that's all from me. Enjoy, and as always, all feedback is appreciated. _

_Chapter 6_

Just Hermione

After standing stupidly for a few seconds, Draco hastily raced out of the library. Firstly, he had to get away from those insufferable girls. Secondly, he wanted to find Hermione.

Had that been a 'putting it on for the crowd' kiss? It sure hadn't felt like it, to him. But what had it been, then? It was impossible, absolutely stark raving _mad_ to suppose that it had been a mutual attraction sort of kiss. With Hermione Granger? The muggleborn brainiac who never shuts up? Definitely not. Except that... he didn't think of her as the muggleborn brainiac anymore. Now she was just... Hermione. A girl. Who likes to hang out in the library and reads old books and stresses out over her friends and agrees to pretend to date a guy she despises. She was just Hermione.

Were they friends, even? He supposed that the seeing each other very often, frequently tracking each other down and spending hours in each other's company would be general entailments of friendship. They'd never _acknowledged_ each other as friends. Draco didn't _have_ friends. He had followers – Crabbe and Goyle – and acquaintances – Blaise Zabini – and worst enemies – Potter, Weasley, and formerly Hermione. But not friends. He hadn't once written a letter on the holidays to ask how another person was doing. He'd never invited another person to the Manor for a weekend, or introduced anyone to his parents...

With a sudden start, Draco realised that he wasn't thinking about friends at all. He was thinking about _girl_friends, about the girls that you're supposed to take to dinner and drive – stupid Muggle concept – home and conjure flowers. Was he wondering if Hermione was his _girlfriend_?

'Of course not' was the response that immediately came to mind. As far as he knew, to have a girlfriend you have to ask them out or to be your girlfriend or whatever. He wasn't entirely up to speed with the whole dating thing. He'd never had a proper girlfriend either. Just... Parkinson. She was more of a leech than a girlfriend.

"Draco," gasped the small warm thing that he ran into. "You frightened me. Is something wrong?"

"No, er, nothing, nothing at all," he stammered, suddenly not so sure why he was freaking out.

"You look strange," she commented.

He regained his voice to say, "Why, thank you."

"Did something happen?" she inquired.

"No." He was a little quick in his reply.

Suddenly, there was a lot of very loud music pouring from a nearby room. Draco jumped. Hermione smiled.

"What's going on?" he asked, peering past her to see the entrance to the Gryffindor common room.

"Party," she explained. "Somebody else's birthday is today as well."

"Ah, I figured. It's not like they'd throw a party for _me_, is it?"

"No, it isn't."

He gestured to the door. "So why aren't you joining the party?" he asked, watching the portrait open and a drunk, sprawling Neville crawl out. How the hell did they obtain alcohol?

"I hate parties," she said simply, turning and walking in the opposite direction.

He followed, trying to catch her up. "So where are you going?"

"Away," she explained. "Did you want to come?"

He nodded quickly, and had to concentrate to follow her. She led him through a winding route, going up stairs and through tapestry tunnels and around sharp corners. It was a little confusing, but as long as he kept close to her, he managed to get by quite well.

"Where exactly are you taking me?" he asked.

"Away," she repeated, turning to look at him, a slight smile on her face. He wasn't sure if it was aimed at him or not, but it was appreciated all the same.

She came to a stop in a small room, with books and a sofa or two. She sat on it, her toes meeting with her heels facing outwards. Draco wasn't sure why he was noticing Hermione's feet.

"We need to talk," she began.

"Yes, we do."

He sat opposite her with the little coffee table in between them. She folded her hands together, fiddling with her fingers as she looked down at her lap. Then she looked up.

"It needs to end." The words rang clearly through Draco's head.

"Yes, it does."

"It's gone far enough. They've seen us enough. They're going to believe it when we break up at dinner or something. You can tell your father that you were just doing it to humiliate me, and we'll both be safe, right?"

"Yes, we will."

She looked at him for a moment. "Feeling verbose?"

"I agree with everything you said. We'll do it tonight," he said, his voice sounding strangely dead in his head.

Hermione obviously noticed. "So... I guess this is it."

"So what now?" he asked suddenly. "We never speak again? We go back to the whole 'hating each other' thing?"

"What else can we do? We will have broken up." She smiled wryly. Draco tried to find something other than her face to fix his gaze upon.

Her voice came in a whisper. "I don't want that, you know."

"Me either," he said immediately. "For a Gryffindor, you aren't that bad."

"And for a Slytherin, you aren't too bad either. I mean, no worse than the average Slytherin. Perhaps a little arrogant..." she said, smiling slightly.

He looked at her. "What do we do?"

"We say goodbye," she said, biting her bottom lip hard enough that all of the colour drained from it. She released it, and it went back to being bright red. It quivered slightly before she said, "I'll see you around, Draco."

He stood up as she left, but didn't follow her. It was over. Not that there had been anything, really, aside from a fake relationship. It was ridiculous, how this had started from an idiotic gossiping bunch of schoolchildren. He appreciated it, actually. An entire friendship – sort of – had been formed by the gossip. He didn't regret it either. He just wished it didn't have to end. He'd enjoyed the constant rushing to Hermione to have a rant about Padma Patil, who he'd overheard discussing the look on his face when Hermione spoke to him, or the way that Hermione had grabbed him by his tie so frequently – yes, he didn't mind as much as he professed – and dragged him into a room to yell at him. It had given her a spark of animation that suited her.

"Erm... Draco?"

It was Kim again, sticking her head around the door. He frowned inquisitively.

"What did you do to Hermione?" she demanded. "She looked upset. You didn't..."

He stared at her, trying to understand what she meant. Then he did. "Oh! Merlin, no! Did she _tell_ you that?"

"No," she said. "Perhaps you should come see her."

"I don't think that would be such a good idea," he said hesitantly. Better to start laying the groundwork now. "We're going through a tough time."

"I'll hit you, I swear," she threatened, the little short person glaring at him with a rage that would have looked fitting on Snape's face. "If you hurt her..."

"I'm going, I'm going," he said hastily, letting her shoo him out of the room.

Once he was out of eyesight, he started to jog.

"Malfoy," said Potter, grabbing him by the collar and pulling him into a room. Draco glared at Potter and Weasley, who were both glaring back at him.

"We need to discuss something with you," said Weasley, running his freckly fingers through his red hair. Gross.

"Yes? Make it quick, I've got to find Hermione."

They exchanged a glance that struck him as rather ominous. He leant against a desk suspiciously.

"It's actually _about_ Hermione that we have to talk to you about," said Potter.

Draco _could_ have told him that his sentence hadn't made sense, and that the second 'about' had been redundant, but he chose not to. He was outnumbered two to one, after all.

"What about her?" he asked, trying to act casual.

"The façade has got to end," said Potter. Wow. Draco hadn't known he knew any words that were more than five letters long.

"What façade?" he said, automatically injecting the second word with a certain tone of disdain and sarcasm.

"You pretending to date her," interrupted Weasley. "It's ridiculous! It's stupid! It makes absolutely no sense!"

"You've made your opinion quite clear," said Draco coolly.

"Why are you doing it?" asked Potter.

"To get all of you off our backs," said Draco, suddenly rather annoyed that they had the gall to demand an explanation from him when they had been two of the instigators in the stupid scheme in the first place.

"_Us_?" asked Weasley incredulously. "What have _we_ got to do with it?"

"Bugging Hermione about whether or not we were going out!"

Potter, at least, had the decency to look sheepish.

"We did nothing of the sort, _Malfoy_! Asking my best friend whether she's dating our worst enemy is not _bugging_! You really need a dictionary, don't you, jerk?" said Weasley, going all red in the face from his anger.

Well _that_ just made Draco fabulously happy. "Don't you _dare_ call me a jerk, you _blood traitor_."

"Going back to taunting people about their blood status, Malfoy?" Potter cut in. "We thought Hermione had cured you of that."

Draco leant right close to Weasley, and hissed, "You have no idea what is going on with Hermione and I. I strongly suggest that you go _die_. It isn't _my_ fault that you've waited so long that all hope that you had with her is gone."

The fist that flew into his face gave him a pretty good estimation of how mad he'd made Weasley by saying that. He staggered backwards, clutching his cheek. _That's gonna bruise_, he thought, before he flew at Weasley and started hitting him with all his might.

You'd think that Potter would have looked upon that moment as an opportune one to use his fantastic meddling powers and step in. But obviously not. He seemed perfectly content to stand on the sidelines, making half-hearted comments like, 'oh, come on, he's not worth it!' but not lifting a finger to get his hirsute friend _off_ Draco.

The door slammed open. Draco looked up, which gave Weasley a good opportunity to whack him in the nose. It was Hermione, looking very surprised when she saw them fighting. That surprise quickly transposed into horror, and her wand was in her hand in an instant, and Weasley and Draco were held back by some strong invisible force in another instant.

"_What do you think you're doing_?"

"He started it," sulked Weasley.

Draco snorted. "Oh, come on. Are you _two_?"

"No," he said defensively.

Hermione strengthened her charm, and glared at Ron. "What did you do to him?"

"To _Malfoy_?" asked Potter incredulously.

"Why do you care?" demanded Weasley, glaring at Draco.

Draco was busy assessing the damage. He gingerly poked a finger at his cheekbone, which was throbbing painfully. He could feel a vague tickling under his nose. He guessed blood. Suddenly, the pressure holding him to the wall disappeared, and his face was suddenly very warm. It faded into its normal coolness, and he didn't hurt anymore. He noticed Hermione's wand pointing at him, and she smiled apologetically before she turned it on Weasley. He was pleased to see that he'd done considerable damage to the loser. There was a cut on his forehead – although he wasn't exactly sure how he'd done that – and a bruise on his cheek and a cut on his lip dripping blood down his cheek and a split eyebrow. But then all the evidence of Draco's wonderful fighting skills vanished as a flash of light burst from the end of Hermione's wand. He grimaced, and glared at Weasley.

"What were you doing?" she demanded. "Why did you fight?"

"We pulled him in to tell him to stop pretending to date you," said Potter.

"And he called me a blood traitor," added Weasley, scowling at Draco.

Hermione looked shocked. She'd obviously thought he'd gotten over that particular brand of insult as well. Well, he had, but it was the first thing that had come to his head. He would have called him something imaginative but he'd been a little preoccupied with hating Weasley.

"So you agree with us, right, Hermione?" said Weasley. "That this whole thing should stop?"

"It _is_ stopping," growled Draco. "I would have told you if you hadn't been busy hitting me."

"Look, Ron, Harry. I'm grateful that you're so concerned for my welfare-"

"-It's just I'm so sick of seeing you with him! It makes me so cross!" continued Weasley, oblivious to whatever Hermione was saying.

She stared at him, her hands on her hips. "You hate _seeing me with him_?" she demanded.

"Well, yeah, it's gross."

"Thanks," said Draco sarcastically.

"Hermione," interjected Potter cautiously. "He didn't mean that he didn't care about your welfare... he just meant that this was another bad part of it, right Ron?"

"What? Don't interrupt me, Harry. I was telling Hermione how disgusting it is to see _him_ touching her and stuff," said Weasley, waving a hand at him.

Draco tried to stifle a snicker. He was going to get it now...

"You are a jerk, Ronald," snapped Hermione. "Letting your stupid Gryffindor pride get in the way of our friendship? You just can't stand to see me _pretending_ to be with a Slytherin, right? And I stressed 'pretending' for a reason! It isn't real! You need to get over it!"

Draco's eyes rolled upwards to the ceiling. Hermione was more than a little stupid if she didn't realise – after all this time – that it wasn't 'house pride' that was making Weasley so mad. He had a major flame for her. It was obvious to everyone. That was partly why Draco had been pressing this pretending thing for so long.

"Hermione, you don't get it. I-"

Potter chose _that moment_ to butt in, conveniently changing the subject before Weasley did something stupid, like declare his love for Hermione or something. "So what happens now?"

"He dumps me at dinner," replied Hermione immediately, shooting an edgy look at Weasley.

"Then what?" prompted Potter. "Do you go back to normal? Back to the way things were?"

She looked at Draco, who sighed – imperceptibly, he hoped. "I guess so," said Hermione, looking back at Potter.

They both seemed very pleased. Hermione didn't. She kept glancing back at Draco, until she sighed. "I'm going to, er, go do some homework," she said, turning and walking out of the room.

"What's up with her?" asked Weasley, rather tactlessly.

Draco glared at him, and followed her. "Hermione?"

Her head was down and she was walking very quickly. She didn't turn around.

"Hermione, please stop walking." He tried to keep his voice controlled. He had a feeling it didn't work too well.

She stopped, but she didn't turn around.

"Okay, that's a start. Now, spin."

She sighed, and turned on her heel to glare at him.

"See? It's much easier to give me dirty looks when you're facing me, isn't it?"

She choked out a laugh. "Shut up."

He took a few steps towards her. "Are you all right?"

"Jeez, we've been asking that a bit today, haven't we?" she said dryly. "Yes, I'm fine. Absolutely brilliant, as a matter of fact. If you don't mind, I've got to go..."

"But I do mind," he volunteered.

She glared at him, and then exclaimed, "I hate this! Just when I thought it was going okay... you know, we stopped hating each other, Ronald and Harry weren't being idiots... and now this. I hate that we have to go back to the old way!"

"Yes, I think we've both made that clear," he said wryly.

"I've really got to go," she said, and raced away. He didn't follow this time, just went outside to glare at the giant squid.

He was dreading the moments until dinner. That would be uncomfortable. He wasn't exactly sure what to say, or how to do it... he had enough experience with dumping people, but he didn't want to be wilfully mean or anything. He _liked_ Hermione, as much as it wigged him out to admit it.

"Okay," said her familiar voice. "We need to plan this out."

She had a roll of parchment with a quill in it and an ink bottle in her other hand. She abruptly sat beside him, the quill poised over the parchment as she waited.

"Sorry?"

"How are you doing to do it? What are you going to say? Should I do something to provoke you?" she asked quickly, spilling ink on the parchment in her haste to speak.

"Erm... if you want," he said uncomfortably.

"Well? _Something _needs to happen! You can't just suddenly say 'okay, buh bye, you're dumped'!"

"Well, erm... I suppose we could come in fighting about something or other?" he suggested.

"Like what?"

"Like the fist fight I got into with your best friend," he reminded her, one eyebrow raising.

"Oh, that's _brilliant_! How did you think of- oh. Right. Well, that's settled. We can play it by ear, I suppose, now that we have a basic game plan."

She was babbling. _Totally_ babbling.

"Calm down."

"I've still got that essay from Snape to finish... I'll see you at dinner, okay?"

He nodded. "Bye." But she had already dashed off.

Hours later, he stood in front of the huge double doors of the Great Hall. He was waiting for Hermione, and at the same time resigning himself to what would come next.

He checked his watch. She was five minutes late. For Hermione, that was a crime worthy of capital punishment. But still, she didn't show. A fist started to clench in his stomach, and steadily got worse as fifteen more minutes passed. People walked past, into the Great Hall, all giving him strange looks for standing there like an idiot. He didn't care. He was worried.

After a while, Potter and Weasley came out, looking just as frantic as he felt. They saw him, and Potter beckoned him.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

"I don't know," said Draco, not even bothering to muster up a sarcastic comment. "I haven't seen her for a few hours."

"She said she was going to the library to do Snape's essay," provided Weasley.

A swishing of material against the floor in the deserted hallway drew their attention. They all turned to stare at Dumbledore, who stood there, looking sombre.

"Mr Potter, Mr Weasley, Mr Malfoy. If you'll accompany me, please," he said, his voice cracking slightly. The three boys ran to catch him up, pelting him with questions as they walked.

"Where is she?"

"Has something happened?"

"Is she hurt?"

"Did they get her?"

"Do you know where she is?"

"Where are we going?"

"Please sir, you need to tell us-"

Dumbledore held up one withered hand, and looked apologetically at the boys. "I'm sorry, but please save your questions. All will be revealed. Now, if you'd hurry a little, that's right..."

Potter and Weasley exchanged a frightened look. Draco just kept walking, in too much of a daze to realise where they were headed. She was hurt, or kidnapped, or something awful had happened to her. He didn't know what... unless she was dead. Oh no. Hermione was... dead.

The gargoyles before Dumbledore's office loomed before him. "Liquorice wands," said Dumbledore, and stepped onto the platform. The boys followed, Draco wondering why the hell they were going to his office.

It was an amazing room, with all the portraits and the spindly little instruments on the tables. Dumbledore sat behind his desk and conjured up three plush chairs. Draco sat in one, staring at Dumbledore and wishing he would get it over with.

Finally, he opened his mouth and said sorrowfully, "A terrible incident has befallen our dear friend Hermione. I'm terribly sorry to disturb you in your worry, but I think you three need to inform me of the goings on that you have participated in – with Miss Granger – over the past few days."

The three of them exchanged a glance, suddenly all equal and more or less civil in their freaked out states. Then they opened their mouths at the same time and all demanded where she was, if she was okay and when they could see her.

"Miss Granger is in the hospital wing. She is hurt, but Madam Pomfrey is doing her best to fix that. Now, the story please."

As Potter and Weasley dove right into their little version of events, Draco took a few seconds to exhale gratefully, and vow to murder his father for following through with his promise. But Hermione was okay, or would be soon, and that was all that mattered. She wasn't Dead Hermione, or Missing Hermione. Just Hermione.

* * *


	7. General Hospital Talk

_Author's Note: Sorry, another shorty. I've been being bugged by Kimbibly to post fast, so that's why the chapter's so short. Enjoy_

* * *

_Chapter 7_

General Hospital Talk

Dumbledore pressed the pads of his fingers together, observing Draco over the top of his glasses. Draco wondered how he could see without looking through the glasses, and immediately reprimanded himself for being able to think something so trivial when Hermione was hurt, because of him.

"So, what you three are so succinctly attempting to tell me is that Miss Granger and Mr Malfoy there were pretending to date each other in a scheme to vanquish any idea of their dating each other?" he asked.

Draco nodded. "That's about right."

"And incurred the wrath of the Death Eaters in the process," mused Dumbledore, rubbing his bearded chin. "Yet, you continued to play along?"

"I tried to convince her to get a guard from the Order," Draco admitted. "We weren't really thinking about the act thing. We both knew it would end soon anyway, and I just wanted her to be safe."

Weasley and Potter looked incredulous. "Why do you care if she's safe?"

Dumbledore smiled at Draco. "I believe... you have found a certain attachment to Miss Granger, yes?"

"Yes."

"An attachment?" asked Weasley, his jaw dropping. "So you're actually going out with her?"

"No," said Draco indignantly.

"A friendly attachment," said Dumbledore, and then lowered his glasses to look at Draco again. "_Right_, Mr Malfoy?"

"Um... yes," he said, secretly wondering if he was telling the truth. The horror he had felt – and was still feeling – was a clue enough, wasn't it?

"Liar," muttered Potter.

"How's Hermione?" asked Weasley.

"Well, Miss Granger was hurt-"

"Yes, we got that part," snapped Weasley.

"What happened, Professor?" asked Potter, slightly more politely.

"It seems that Miss Granger was walking towards the library when she was ambushed by a group of Slytherin students-"

Draco exhaled. _Students_. Thank Merlin... He'd been thinking that Hogwarts had somehow been invaded by Death Eaters who had cursed Hermione... The Slytherin students – while knowing some fairly painful Dark magic – weren't quite as well versed as, for example, a certain Lucius Malfoy, who Draco knew would have taken great pleasure in torturing Hermione.

"-who seemed to have taken a disliking to her relationship with Mr Malfoy. She was hit with a burning curse, a few small jinxs such as Jelly Legs and Petrificus Totallus, as well as three Stunners, a hex which broke one of the bones in her neck, and..." He seemed a little reluctant to say the last part.

"And?" prompted Potter.

"And the Cruciatus Curse," admitted Dumbledore.

The three of them all gasped, immediately growing very very angry.

"Who were the students, Professor?" asked Draco, rolling up his sleeves unconsciously.

"Don't worry, Mr Malfoy. They are being taken care of," said Dumbledore grimly.

"Who were they?" demanded Weasley, looking very territorial, like _he_ was the only one with the right to bash up whoever hurt Hermione. They were _Draco's_ housemates, though.

"Pansy Parkinson was the leader, I believe, and the source of the Cruciatus Curse," he said reluctantly.

Draco was about to stand up and go eviscerate Pansy Parkinson and choke the other people who helped her with her entrails, and Potter and Weasley looked set to follow him, but Dumbledore – party pooper – held up his hands to stop them.

"I have already found the culprits, and they are currently being held in a closet by a charm only I can break. Miss Parkinson will be severely punished for using an Unforgivable Curse. But _I_ will deal with that, not you."

Draco muttered to Potter, "On the count of three, you two grab Dumbledore and force him to break the charm. As long as I can drop her off a tall tower first, you're free to help kill her."

Potter smiled wryly. "I don't think that would be wise."

"What are you boys whispering about over there?" inquired Dumbledore, a twinkle in his eyes. "My hearing isn't so good these days..."

"Nothing, Professor," they both said simultaneously. Weasley looked grumpy.

"Would you like to see her?" he asked gently.

"Yes," the three of them exclaimed, leaping to their feet and racing for the door. Dumbledore led the way to the hospital wing, his purple robes billowing out behind him. The doors swung open... and there she was, lying, tiny and frail, in a hospital bed. Dumbledore stood back, and a good thing too, because otherwise he would have been stampeded by three frantic boys. Weasley nudged Draco away from the position by Hermione's head. Draco scowled, and went to the other side. Luckily, Potter seemed satisfied with his place by her hip, or there would have been an all out brawl.

"When's she going to wake up?" asked Weasley, tearing his gaze away from Hermione to look at Madam Pomfrey, who was standing in the corner looking disapproving.

"When she's fully rested," said Madam Pomfrey primly.

"The Cruciatus Curse has terrible effects," said Dumbledore sadly from his position. "She has been cured of the bodily effects, but the psychological ones remain. Be patient, Mr Weasley."

Draco couldn't get over how fragile and _tiny_ she looked. She was white, all colour drained from her face. Her hair was like a halo – albeit an extremely voluminous and bushy one – around her gaunt face. It was amazing – in a terrible way – the effect that an hour or so can have on a person.

"She must sleep," snapped Madam Pomfrey. "Get out!"

"Surely _one_ of us can stay?" said Weasley, obviously meaning himself.

She sighed, and growled, "One."

"I will!" he said immediately.

"Mr Weasley," interrupted Dumbledore. "I need to speak to you. Privately."

Weasley sent a longing look at Hermione, and a dirty one at Draco, but followed Dumbledore out of the room. Draco looked at Potter, prepared to fight him. Potter smiled slightly, and stood up.

"You can go first. If she wakes up while you're here, can you tell her that Ron and I say hello?"

Draco nodded stiffly, surprised that Potter was actually being a civil human being. He watched him leave, and then turned back to Hermione. He had some seriously thinking to do, and now was as good a time as ever. He looked at Hermione's sunken cheeks, and the thin hand that lay on the blanket. He hesitated for a moment, and then stretched out his hand and placed it on hers. It was cold and dry. She didn't feel Hermione-y.

Why was he so worried about her? Of course, there had been guilt, from him thinking that it was Death Eaters, and the guilt was still there, because it was obvious that Parkinson had been jealous. But he wasn't supposed to like her, remember? She was a muggleborn. She was off-limits. She was supposed to be filth. It was the label given to everyone of her heritage.

But _Hermione_ was another thing entirely. She wasn't just a part of the muggleborn community. She was a real person, with feelings and passions and an exceptionally nice body. He sternly told himself off – in his mind, of course, since talking to himself aloud hadn't done him any favours in the past – and directed his thoughts back out of the gutter onto the sidewalk.

Hermione was, well, interesting. She was pretty, too. He wasn't sure what it was... something about her teeth being smaller from the incident in their fourth year, and something about the less-bushy-than-usual hair... but she had gotten much better looking, mostly in the past few days when he'd gotten to know her. But she'd looked like this since the start of the year, hadn't she? Maybe it was just his brain, trying to convince itself that she wasn't so bad and proving it by updating his idea of her looks and personality and everything...

He had to admit it to himself. As much as it terrified him, as much as it would disgust his parents and his friends... he liked Hermione. He _really_ liked Hermione. Bit ironic, isn't it, that the one girl he actually likes for _her_ and she's stuck up in a hospital bed when he figures it out. He scowled at the timing of this realisation, and concentrated on Hermione. He was going to kill Pansy Parkinson. He couldn't believe she'd taken her little obsession so far. Performing an Unforgivable... and on _Hermione_, no less. He hated to admit it, but she'd probably be the legend of Slytherin for a fair few years to come. Although, if things went the way he hoped, she wouldn't be _around_ for more than a few hours.

He spent the next two hours imagining lovely ways to kill Pansy Parkinson. He had a few good ones, too. He was halfway through his scheme of sawing off her head with a rusty saw when he felt pressure on his hand. Hermione's hand, underneath his, slowly flipped over, and her fingers twitched slightly before entwining with his.

"Hermione?" he asked cautiously, leaning closer to her face, but she didn't stir. Two spots of colour, however, had appeared high on her cheeks. Thank Merlin for that.

"Mr Malfoy?" asked Madam Pomfrey, re-entering the room with a vial of vile-smelling orange potion which appeared to be hissing. "You should leave, now."

"But... she just moved... does that mean she's almost ready to wake up?" He was so concerned that he forgot to add a sarcastic comment.

She obviously was as well. "Probably. Here, move please."

She forced the gross potion down Hermione's throat. Hermione gagged slightly, but swallowed and stopped moving again.

Draco took that opportunity to use some of his skills for his benefit. He smiled at Madam Pomfrey, and said, in his most attractive voice, "Thank you for looking after her, Madam Pomfrey."

Madam Pomfrey looked stunned. She stammered, "Er, that's okay," and hurried away. He smiled to himself, and tightened his grip on her hand before going back to thinking about Pansy Parkinson and the rusty saw, and all of the wonderful tetanus she would contract.

"Draco," breathed a voice he had been picturing many times over the past few hours. "What are you doing here?"

Her eyes were open, and she was looking at him alertly. She already looked more normal.

"I'm waiting with you, of course," he said, trying to keep calm. He was incredibly excited that she was awake, and more so that she had realised that they were holding hands, and yet had made no move to draw hers away.

"Why?"

As tempted as he was to tell her the real reason why, he couldn't bring himself to. "Because Dumbledore thought one of us should wait with you until you woke up. Besides, I couldn't have you going around telling people that we aren't broken up yet. I had to keep an eye on you."

She laughed shakily, and clutched her stomach. "Ouch."

"What is it?" he asked frantically, moving to get Madam Pomfrey.

She pulled him back by the hand that was still wrapped around hers. "It's okay. She burned me in the stomach."

"Parkinson?"

"Yes. I'm going to kill her."

He smiled wryly. "Need help? Potter and Weasley'll help too."

"Good. The more the merrier. Can I go now? I've got an essay due tomorrow."

He pushed her back down onto the bed, both of them realising at the same time that his hands were between her shoulders and her chest. He snatched them back hastily and placed them on his lap.

"You have to stay here, at least for the night. You were Cruciated, remember?"

"Oh, I remember," she said dryly. "But I'm over it now. I don't hurt anymore."

Madam Pomfrey bustled in with another potion. "Good, you're awake. Here, this will get you back to sleep." Draco didn't see the sense in that, but let Madam Pomfrey force the purple potion into Hermione's mouth. Then she turned to Draco, her arms folded. "Mr Malfoy, I really must ask you to-"

"Okay, okay," said Draco, scowling at her retreating form. He looked at Hermione. "I'll come back tomorrow, okay?"

"Thanks," she said gently, feeling for his hand and squeezing it. "Really. For everything."

"Oh, Potter said to tell you hi from him and Weasley. They'll be here tomorrow as well," he added, not relinquishing his hold on her hand.

"Okay." She sighed slightly, her eyes fluttering. Jeez, that potion was annoying. She struggled to open them again, and whispered, "An eventful birthday, right?"

"Very eventful," he agreed, but she was already asleep. He sighed, and extracted his hand from hers. He crept out of the hospital wing, back to the Slytherin common room. It was abandoned, which Draco was grateful for. He snuck into his dormitory and fell asleep quickly. Hermione had been right. It certainly _had_ been an eventful birthday.

* * *

_Reviews appreciated._


	8. So Much For That

_Author's Note: Sorry, another short one. I promised two awesome people, kimbibly and BlueSpottedDog that I'd have an update for them by today. Enjoy._

_Chapter 8_

So Much For _That_...

The next morning, Draco woke up feeling indescribably happy. He wasn't sure why – God knows he was crazy to be happy when Hermione was still in the hospital wing – and he had a feeling he would be encountering two little annoyances before long, by the names of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. But he was happy anyway.

He was fast in dressing, pulling on his tie with reckless abandon. It was too early for breakfast, so he raced to the hospital wing to see if Hermione was still okay. She was, and she was also awake, reading voraciously from a tall stack of books that had appeared by her bedside.

"Good morning," she said without looking up. "You're up early."

"Am I? Well, I promised I'd come back. I never specified what time." He sat in the chair by her bed. "So, what are you reading?"

She held it up so he could read the title. It was another one that he'd read at the Manor. "I've read that."

"Yes, me too."

"And you're reading it again?"

She nodded. "I liked it."

"Yes, me too," he teased, mimicking her answer.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Sleep well?"

"Exceptionally. And yourself?"

"Out like a light. You really shouldn't let her feed me things like that. I feel groggy." She shook her head slightly, and turned the page.

"Perhaps it's the book making you groggy," he suggested.

"Perhaps..."

She continued to read, her eyes occasionally dancing away from the page and lighting upon his. She always smiled.

"So," he said after a while. "What are you up to?"

"He's just entered the house," she said without removing her glance from her book.

A few seconds later, he asked, "How about now?"

She smiled, and closed the book. It went on top of the stack with the others, and she turned to face him. "How about I talk to you instead?" she suggested. "Would you prefer that?"

"Muchly."

She rolled her eyes. "So. Last night. Sorry I missed our meeting."

"You were otherwise occupied," he said dryly. "I understand."

She went pink. "Shut up. I don't like missing appointments." She leant her head back on the pillow, still gazing at him, still pink in the cheeks. He gazed back.

"Mr Malfoy! Get to breakfast!" barked Madam Pomfrey, emerging from her office with another bottle of weird looking potion.

"Don't leave me here," muttered Hermione, but Draco shot her an apologetic look and went to grab his books before breakfast.

He slid into his usual place at the Slytherin table, although he noticed a few empty seats, and mentally checked off the students in his head. Blaise was already there, digging into a very large plate of food.

"Hey," he said, grabbing some bacon from Blaise's plate.

Blaise rolled his eyes, but continued forking scrambled eggs into his mouth. With that mouth full of aforementioned eggs, he commented, "Hey, did you hear about Parkinson? Apparently she and some of her cronies hexed Granger."

"Yes, I'm aware of that," snapped Draco, taking a swig of Blaise's pumpkin juice. He just didn't have the energy to reach forward and grab his own.

"Oh, right, it's your girlfriend. Sorry, forgot. So what did Parkinson do, exactly?"

"The Cruciatus Curse, amongst others," said Draco, glaring at Pansy's usual – abandoned – seat. "Hermione is in the hospital wing, recovering."

"No, she isn't," said Blaise, and pointed.

There she was, walking into the Great Hall. She looked a little frail still, but her nose was buried in a book just as emphatically as usual. She wandered over to the Gryffindor table, where she was swallowed. She literally disappeared into the wave of Gryffindors – as well as a great number of Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws – who crowded around her. Obviously, the news had spread fast.

"Merlin, she's popular," commented Blaise. "You'd never know it, would you?"

"No, you wouldn't," said Draco, trying to pick out her head in the crowd.

It appeared, a few minutes later, right behind him.

"Hello."

Her voice made him jump. He spun around, tilting his head slightly as he surveyed her freshly-unhospitalised form.

"How are you feeling? How did you persuade Pomfrey to let you out?"

"Fine, and with difficulty," she said. "I'll see you later, Draco."

She was swept away in a crowd of Potter and Weasleys. Draco had a few more mouthfuls of Blaise's breakfast before he left to go to his first class. It held no interest for him, though, because it was Slytherin only Charms. Same with the next four classes, until lunch. Lunch was pleasant. He ate quickly, from his own plate this time, and then went up to the room that Hermione had taken him to, with the books and the sofas. He found himself a book and settled down to read. He'd only gone through a chapter or two when Hermione burst into the room.

"Sorry," she gasped. "I didn't know you were-"

"No, I'm sorry, this is your special place, after all. I shouldn't have-"

"Don't leave on my account," she said hastily. "Here. We can share."

She sat opposite to him and opened her book on her lap, glancing up carefully to check that he wasn't leaving. He didn't. He sat back down, and set his book on his lap, and continued to read. He looked up every now and again, and so did she. Their gazes met every now and again, and they both quickly looked back down.

"Hermione-" he began, just as Hermione said, "Draco, I-"

"You first," they both said simultaneously.

Hermione sighed, and said, "I want to thank you. I know we're supposed to hate each other and everything, but you've been really nice, even accounting for the whole having to pretend to date thing. I mean, nothing in the job description said anything about staying by my bedside in the hospital wing. So thanks."

"I didn't do it because I had to," he informed her.

She nodded. "I know."

After a while, he asked, "Hermione, are we... friends?"

She tilted her head. "I think what we've got going could be described as friendship... kind of."

He grinned at the 'kind of'. She elaborated, "It's not exactly the Webster's Dictionary definition of 'friends' but it's kind of close. We talk, we laugh, we can be civil. But it's not like we invite each other home for the holidays or anything." She scoffed, as if it was impossible.

"Hermione, come to Malfoy Manor for the holidays," he said, unable to control the words from slipping off his tongue.

"_What_?"

Now the words were coming thick and fast. "My parents are going to be away for the whole thing, at our chateau in France. I think we should be friends. As in, the Webster's Dictionary definition. The whole package. Because I like you, Hermione."

She went pink again. "I like you too, Draco. So..." She looked a little embarrassed. "Your parents are leaving you alone for the entire holidays?"

He grinned. She was actually considering it. "Well, me and the house elf."

Her lips pressed together in a tight line. "You have a house elf?"

"Yes..." he said slowly. Then he remembered her spew thing. "I'm not horrible to it, I promise. In fact, you could have a go at freeing it. I'm sure Father wouldn't mind."

"Oh, not at all," she said sarcastically. Her tone softened, as did her eyes. "I would really like to go to the Manor... as long as you keep your Father away from me."

"Deal," he said, grinning.

"So what were you going to say before?" she asked, looking up from her book at him.

"Oh, nothing," he said hastily. "Erm, I was just going to make sure you were okay from the thing with Parkinson and such."

They went back to their books, reading for another few pages before Draco said, "You know... we're still a pretty strange specimen of friends."

"I agree," she said, smiling

He nodded. She nodded. They both looked back to their books, but at the same time, looked up again. He looked at her. She looked at him.

"Screw it," he muttered, kicking the coffee table over as Hermione rushed to him. Their lips met before they had time to think, and it was _wonderful_. Because this time, it was for them, not for the audience. Her fingers were latched in his hair, and he didn't even mind that it was mussing up his hairstyle. His were everywhere, running down her back, on her side, through her hair. They weren't concentrating on their hands, though. It was their lips that were preoccupying their minds, and those of each other. He staggered backwards a little, and landed in the seat. Hermione came down with him, sitting on his lap as they continued. He wasn't going to break this mindblowing kiss for a little setback like a slip. Her arms clasped around his neck, and his on her waist. It seemed to be a position that worked for them, because they went on for a fair while that way. All the while, Draco was thinking happy thoughts. Very happy thoughts.

Hermione was the one to draw back, reluctantly releasing her lips even when his head followed hers. She stared at him, looking slightly shocked. She was breathing heavily when she said, "That was..."

"Wonderful?"

"Something like that," she stammered. He supported her so she sat upright. "So does that mean we're... not just friends?"

"I don't know about you," he said softly, "but that wasn't for the gossips. That was for _me_, and for you."

"I don't want to be just your friend, Draco," she said, the words tumbling out in a steady stream. "I want to be much, much more than a friend. I want to go home with you on the holidays, and to be able to kiss you in public without having an ulterior motive, and to have people asking if I'm dating you and to be able to say yes and-"

"I think I've fallen for you, Hermione," he said abruptly.

She looked at him, searching for something untruthful. Apparently, she didn't find anything, because she pressed her lips against his frantically. He stroked her face with his index finger, and she shivered before smiling at him, a warm, brilliant smile that made _him_ shiver.

"You know what?" he whispered in her ear. "Our first date can be murdering Pansy Parkinson together."

"Sounds good to me," she whispered back, and stood up.

Draco held out his hand, and she took it. It felt... right. He didn't care that she was muggleborn or incredibly knowitally or Potter's best friend. All he cared about was that he thought he might love her, and that she might love him back.

They walked downstairs, to their special shelf in the library. Two people were already there, kissing frantically.

"_Blaise_?" asked Draco incredulously, as Hermione exclaimed, "Kim!"

The two people sprang apart. It _was_ Blaise, sitting there making out with the short Kim girl. Blaise grinned sheepishly at Draco. "What can I say, man? You set a trend."

"Sorry," said Hermione, and quickly pulled Draco backwards.

They exchanged a strange look and ran for it, laughing all the way.

"Potter isn't going to like this," Draco remarked as they strolled along by the lake.

"I don't think he'll mind. Ron, on the other hand, might be a little angry," she said, her eyes combing the water for the dark splodge that was the giant squid.

"A little?" scoffed Draco, pulling her closer to him.

"He'll get over it," she said. Draco heard an intake of breath as the giant squid emerged from the water. He wondered if it was standing on its tentacles. It seemed to look at them contemptuously, before hissing black ink into the water and disappearing again.

"That is one Slytherin squid," she commented.

He laughed. "Stupid squid, more like."

Colin Creevey appeared in front of them, ducking out from behind a tree, and flashed a photo of them. They both jumped backwards, and Hermione exclaimed, "_Colin_! Get _lost_!"

"So you're still together?" he asked, looking enthralled.

Draco pushed past him, pulling Hermione with him. He murmured in her ear, "You know, now we don't have to explain our little act to them."

"You know, that hadn't actually occurred to me," she said, her eyebrows raised as she considered.

"Well, I _am_ a genius, after all," he said modestly.

They walked back into the Great Hall because Hermione wanted to see if Weasley and Potter were still there. They were, and so was Dumbledore. He was standing out the front, speaking to everyone.

"In light of recent events, I have found it prudent to inform you all that Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy are _not_, as we have been led to believe, dating. Oh, here they are-"

Every head in the Great Hall turned to stare at them as they kissed, right in front of the doors to the Great Hall. So much for not dating, thought Draco with a smirk, before he concentrated solely on making out with Hermione.

* * *

_Author's Note: DO NOT BE ALARMED. THIS IS NOT THE END. And mark my words, it won't just be soppy fluff from now on. Well, not ALL soppy fluff. The story, which started as a 5000 word oneshot, has grown and flourished, and it still has a fair bit of growing and flourishing yet. So don't lose hope. Reviews whored after, if that makes sense._

* * *


	9. Uh Oh

_Author's Note: Firstly, I'm so sorry. After my wonderful little posting spree (if I do say so myself) at the start of the week, I've been loaded down by work and assignments which I have been too busy loathing to update._

_Also, this ought to be longer, as a present for the incredibly slow update, but it isn't. It's probably the shortest one yet. I'm very sorry. But I will update faster over the next few days, I promise._

_Chapter 9_

Uh Oh

It was one thing to see Professor Dumbledore stammer. It was another thing entirely to see him stammer in front of hundreds of students, while making out with Hermione Granger. If truth be told, Draco was rather pleased with himself. In the space of an hour or so, he had managed to secure the girl he loved, make holiday plans with said girl, and baffle a certain wizened professor who was gaping at them from the front of the room. Quite an accomplishment, for such a short period of time. He was very proud.

Suddenly, a thought ripped through his head and distracted him from Hermione's lips for a few seconds. What would happen when they stopped? They would either have to turn and leave again, which would be very embarrassing, or stand there like idiots until everyone else left, which would also be quite shameful, or walk to the tables like nothing had happened, which wouldn't work because that would mean they'd have to separate, and that was not an option. Definitely not.

Hermione had obviously been thinking the same thing, because their lips parted and she looked at him nervously. He shrugged, and turned to leave. He was interrupted, however, by a burst of very loud laughter, and another of very loud yelling. He glanced at Dumbledore, who was the source of the laughter. Weaselbee over there was the one yelling, and doing a damn fine job of it too. Potter had to hold him down.

A glance across, however, told him that Hermione was not so amused by the proceedings. She was watching Ron, looking upset. Well, boo hoo. Lover boy doesn't get his happy ending. Too bad. His happy ending was now firmly wrapped in Draco's arms, and he wasn't about to let her go anytime soon. Not unless he was hit in the head by something heavy and his brain went spastic. Maybe he would then, but once he was unspasticated he'd go get her again.

"Mr Malfoy, Miss Granger," said Dumbledore jovially. "I was just informing the students of your little plot... as a duty to the school, to keep any more _incidents_ from occurring. Anything you'd like to add?"

"I think it's rather _obvious_ what _they_ would like to add," snarled Snape from the Head table.

"Damn right it's obvious!" yelled Weasley.

Huh. For once, Snape and Weasley were on the same page, actually _agreeing_ with one another. Didn't seem to help their relationship, though, because Snape glared at Weasley for confirming his already succinctly stated comment, and Weasley glared back at Snape because he hadn't said it first.

That reminded him. The Slytherin table, which he took that moment to observe, was full of students who were glaring at him. Mostly, that is. Blaise winked, and Crabbe and Goyle held their usual stupid expression. At least they were always reliable, those boys. He didn't particularly care that they all hated him now. Good riddance, he thought. He didn't need them. Besides, as soon as they started to die out they'd start to see reason.

"Mr Weasley?" inquired Dumbledore. "Is there something _you_ would like to say?"

"A few things, yeah, but none that I'd feel comfortable saying in front of teachers," he said loudly.

The Gryffindor table let out an 'oooh!' Draco rolled his eyes disgustedly. Hermione gave a rather unladylike snort that he took to mean that she thought Weasley was ridiculous as well.

"We won't tell," said Dumbledore, smiling widely and pretending to zip his lips.

"Ron..." warned Potter in a low voice, which every person in the Great Hall could still hear. Wow. Draco had never realised that the hall had such great acoustics.

"No, Harry! It's not fair! She _lied_ to us!" said Weasley, wrenching himself out of Potter's grasp and standing up. He strode from the Great Hall, and hissed, "Slut," at Hermione on his way past.

Well, Draco understood that Weasley was suffering a great disappointment right now, and that he was probably a little more temperamental than usual. But the fact remained that he had just insulted Hermione, and _that_ was not excusable under any circumstances. So Draco went to punch him – since punching Weasley was strangely satisfying – but Hermione had gotten there first. Her wand was jabbing into Weasley's neck, and she looked kind of possessed.

He was in a stalemate. There was nothing he could do. He couldn't flee, and he couldn't hit her or anything. Just when it would have been fun to see how Weasley would have gotten out of that one, when Draco was just about ready to order popcorn to sit and watch the show, Dumbledore intervened again.

"Miss Granger, please remove your wand from Mr Weasley's jugular," he said, sounding kind of weary.

He swept down the gap between two of the tables, and said quietly, "I think we need to have another chat, Mr Weasley. Did nothing from our last one stick in your mind, dear boy?"

Weasley didn't reply, just scowled at Hermione and Draco and preceded Dumbledore out of the room. Draco led Hermione out of the hall as well, but he didn't intend on going to the headmaster's office. He pressed her against a wall and kissed her, and they were still partaking in that enjoyable activity when Colin Creevey came out and snapped another picture of them.

"Holy _Merlin_!" yelled Draco. He whipped out his wand, ready to curse first the camera, and then Creevey, until they were nothing but a little pile of dust.

The kid disappeared, tucking his camera into a bag. Draco grimaced, and faced Hermione.

"I've got to go get my books for Potions," he informed her.

She held up her wand, and a book bag zoomed around the corner and landed slung over her shoulder. "I don't."

Draco didn't think he should try that. The bag would have to break through at least one wall to get to him, and he had a feeling Filch wouldn't take too kindly to that. So he took Hermione's hand and led her to the Slytherin common room. It was deserted, as it always was at lunch time. As well as being arrogant and selfish, Slytherins were also always hungry.

Hermione looked nervous as she stepped into the room, as if worrying that she was going to be struck down by a giant snake or something. True, she was probably the first non-Slytherin to be admitted into here... ever... but she hadn't been attacked yet, had she? He grinned at the look on her face, and pulled her further into the room. He hauled his book bag onto his shoulder, and sat down on one of the sofas. They still had a good fifteen minutes, believe it or not, and it was never advisable to get to Potions that early.

Hermione came and sat next to him, looking around the room now that she knew she wasn't going to be killed for setting foot in the Slytherin common room.

"Wow," she breathed. "It's nice in here."

He cast a critical glance around the room, and shrugged. "I suppose."

She laughed. "Enthusiastic, Draco."

He settled his arm around her, and closed his eyes as she kissed him.

Then, something flew at them both, wings outstretched and talons glinting in the light. Hermione screamed and ducked. Draco Petrificus Totallused the thing, which dropped to the floor with a thud. It was his father's owl, back again with a large letter on its leg. It was glaring at them – if a bird can glare – with its horrible yellow eyes.

"What _is_ that?" asked Hermione, sounding shaken.

She had a cut on her cheek that was dribbling blood down her face, and a few scratches on her hands where she had held them up to defend herself.

"Are you okay?" he asked worriedly, while contemplating exploding the damn bird properly this time.

"I'm fine," she said hastily, gingerly pressing her hand to her face and inspecting it.

Draco edged towards the bird, and snatched the letter off its leg before it could scratch him. The bird gave a little squawk, and Draco picked it up by its leg and dropped it out the window before he removed his spell. He slammed the window closed and took the letter back to Hermione. He rolled his eyes at her, split the seal and upend the envelope. The newsletter fell out, the one with the pictures of them. Over Hermione's face was a large, savage cross in blood red ink. Beside him, she gasped. Draco grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room, the paper in his clenched fist. As he ran, a small scroll fell out. Hermione stopped and picked it up.

"'Fair warning, don't you think?'" she read, and thrust the note at him.

It was his father's handwriting, of course. Draco shook his head, and continued running to Dumbledore's office. As tempted as he was to Floo to Malfoy Manor and _murder_ his father, he had a feeling Dumbledore would like to hear about it first – and then possibly help.

"Liquorice wand," he panted to the gargoyles, and heaved Hermione onto the platform with him as it started to revolve its way up.

Weasley was still sitting in the chair, while Dumbledore paced around with his back facing Draco and Hermione. However, he still said, "Mr Malfoy, Miss Granger. Is something wrong?"

"Look!" said Draco, pressing the paper upon Dumbledore, who surveyed it with a strange look on his face.

"This is terrible," he said after a while. "Do you have proof that it was from your father?"

"The note in his handwriting," suggested Hermione, sitting beside Weasley, who turned to her and whispered something in her ear. She smiled, and patted his hand, and turned back to watch Draco and Dumbledore.

Draco handed Dumbledore the note as well. He nodded once. "If you'll excuse me, students..." He clapped his hands, and disappeared. Draco rolled his eyes, and sat in the chair beside Hermione.

"Hermione, what's going on?" asked Weasley.

Draco handed him the paper. Weasley stared at it, horrified. "He wouldn't... oh Merlin... he can't, can he?"

"He would," said Draco grimly.

"It's okay," said Hermione simply. "He can't get into the school."

"But _you'll_ never be able to leave it," said Weasley, glaring at Draco as if it was _his_ fault that his father was a maniac.

"Dumbledore will get him," said Draco soothingly. "Hopefully, he'll kill him."

"Draco!" reprimanded Hermione, ever the correct little student. "That's your _father_ you're talking about!"

"I'm aware that that," he said, leaning back in the chair.

Weasley laughed. Draco couldn't help but grin a little. Hermione rolled her eyes and both of them, and started pacing in the same place Dumbledore had been.

"Hermione, sit down," said Weasley. "You're making me nervous."

"Sorry," she said sarcastically. Draco saw that her gaze kept flicking back to the picture with the cross over her face. He got out his wand and charmed it up onto a high shelf where she couldn't see it. She smiled gratefully, and continued to pace.

"Why isn't he back yet?" she demanded, creases of worry apparent on her pale face. "He ought to be back by now."

"Calm down," said Draco, not choosing to inform her that he was actually getting to be quite as frantic as she was. He wasn't showing it, though. He had an excellent poker face after living in the same house as his father for a decade or so.

"How can you not be freaking out?" she asked, pacing closer to him.

He took the opportunity to grab her by the wrist and pull her onto his lap. She sighed, but didn't try to get up and pace again. Weasley grimaced, and Draco smirked at his triumph. Hermione leant against his chest, warm and tiny and somehow fitting perfectly.

"It'll be fine," he murmured in her ear, trying to be reassuring and – if he said so himself – doing it fantastically. "Dumbledore will capture him, and bring him back here so that you can kick him in whichever conveniently placed sensitive spot you choose, and then we can go back to the common room and plan how to kill the bird."

She smiled slightly, and her eyes misted over, as if she were imagining plucking off its feathers and roasting it over a spit. Well, _he_ was, anyway.

Then her eyes widened, and she exclaimed, "What if he _kills_ Dumbledore?"

Weasley obviously decided to have a go at the calming down thing. "Chill, Hermione. Nothing to worry about. You shouldn't be worrying at all."

She glared at him. "So I should sit there happily like _you_? You don't care at all that there's a distinct possibility that Dumbledore could get hurt?"

"He _is_ Dumbledore, remember?" muttered Draco in her ear.

She turned in his lap and glared at him too. "So you take his side _now_ of all times?" She jumped to her feet and started the pacing again. They both made a leap for her as she almost walked into the fire that appeared as Dumbledore's tall figure darkened into being.

"What happened?" they all asked urgently in unison.

"We have a slight problem," Dumbledore informed them dryly, using his wand to repair the sleeve that was starting to smoulder.

"_A slight problem_?" asked Hermione, somewhere on the verge of hysterics.

"Let me guess," said Draco slowly. "He's about your height, pale, pretty goddamn ugly, snake eyes...?"

Dumbledore surveyed them carefully through his half-moon glasses. "Yes. Voldemort."

* * *

_Author's Note: Again, I'm sorry! But I thought I should cut it off there, you know, DA DA DUM, VOLDIE'S BACK! But you know what that means? If I chose to cut it off there, it means I could have gone on. THEREFORE, I still have more ideas/writing, THEREFORE you will have a quick post. Hopefully. Within a few hours, I hope. Please review!_

* * *


	10. Apparently, Draco is a Boy

_Author's Note: Firstly, all animal lovers... I apologise. Draco will feel bad, I promise._

_Secondly... I'm sorry for the slow update. Life has been so hectic that I can probably only update once a week. I've been lying in bed, sick, yesterday and today and probably for some time, which means, yes, that I do have some time on my hands, and also that the illness is killing my brain cells. I'm hoping to get another chapter up this weekend. It's starting to get fun, in my opinion._

_Thirdly... there _was_ a third thing, but I can't quite recall it. Apart from the obvious: thank you to all constant readers who stay with me each chapter, providing insight, ideas and wonderful feedback. You guys kick virtual ass. _

_I remembered the last thing, and I promise this IS the last thing. I'm rambling, I know, and I'm sorry. But for those of you out there who like Ron – I'm sorry. For the record, that apology applies to all previous chapters where I've been Ron-bashing, and to all of the ones in the future. I like Ron as much as the average person, and every time I read the books I'm half wanting a Ron/Hermione and half wanting a Dramione... it's just, this is Draco and Hermione's story. Not Ron's. There's. Do I have to express it any more strongly? He keeps getting beat up – emotionally and physically – 'coz to be honest, he's just so much fun to muck around with. If I'm hunted down for being so mean to him, I'll write a nice little Ron/Hermione oneshot. Maybe. If I feel like it._

_Okay, seriously, done now. Enjoy. _

* * *

_Chapter 10_

Apparently, Draco is a Boy

All at once, Hermione and Weasley started shooting questions at Dumbledore. It was actually a little spooky, how loud the girl could yell when she was worried.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS _HE_ DOING THERE?" bellowed Weasley.

"_Are you hurt?"_

"DID YOU KILL HIM?"

"_What were they doing?"_

"DID YOU KILL _ANYONE_?"

"_Was it just Malfoy and V-Voldemort?"_

"YEAH! WHAT SHE SAID!"

Dumbledore just looked bemused, and sat in the high chair behind his desk

"How did _you_ know who he was talking about?" Hermione inquired, looking at Draco.

He shrugged. "What else would it be that would freak Professor Dumbledore out so much?"

Weasley started pacing now, while Hermione was still and silent. "Should we go get Harry?" he asked, twisting his hands together.

"What, is he the Voldemort guy? He vanquishes him for another ten years and we pay him a few Galleons?" said Draco sarcastically.

"Hey!"

"Draco," said Hermione, jerking her head at Dumbledore, who was watching them both and waiting for a moment of silence.

"Sorry," said Draco sheepishly, returning to his chair and pulling Hermione with him. Weasley slunk back into his own chair, scowling at Draco.

"When I arrived at Malfoy Manor, your father, Lord Voldemort, and a few select Death Eaters were meeting... at your dining table, I believe."

Draco winced. Ew. Voldemort germs.

"What did you do?" asked Weasley, obviously transfixed.

Dumbledore blushed slightly beneath his beard. Draco stifled a smile. "I fought, of course."

"Did you _win_?" demanded Weasley.

Draco watched Hermione roll her eyes. He may have been mistaken, but Dumbledore seemed to do the same.

"Nobody _wins_ against V-Voldemort, Ronald," said Hermione, glaring at him.

He held up his hands defensively. "I was just _asking_."

"You haven't had enough experience with Vold... erm, Voldemort, that you couldn't have figured that out on your own?" she demanded, folding her arms and gulping a little as she said The Name. Draco traced the veins along her wrist. Hermione shivered, and smiled at him. Weasley exhaled, obviously seeing the fight go out of her and obviously wishing he could be the one to calm her down. Draco was quite pleased with himself. He'd always known he was talented.

Dumbledore nodded slightly at him, a silent thankyou. Draco leaned back, supporting his head with his entwined hands. The image of coolness, of course. He was tempted to put his feet up on the desk, but thought that that might be going a _little_ too far.

"What do we do?" asked Hermione.

"Keep you safe," said Draco simply.

Dumbledore nodded again. "Essentially, Mr Malfoy is correct. Seeing as you have obviously been targeted, you are the most important thing to protect. I would suggest staying at Hogwarts these holidays."

Draco instantly perked up. If they couldn't be alone together at Malfoy Manor, being alone in a huge castle with a lot of empty rooms was the next best thing, if not better. Hermione obviously noticed that she was sitting up a little straighter, a wolfish grin adorning his face. She slapped him on the leg, in a way which made him positive that her thoughts were following his.

"I assume that you will be staying also, Mr Malfoy?" inquired Dumbledore, arching one long, white eyebrow.

"Of course," said Draco, pulling Hermione closer. "What sort of a guy do you think I am?"

He was pretty sure Weasley had grumbled something uncomplimentary in response, but Draco ignored it. Hermione, however, didn't.

"I heard that," she informed him.

"Didn't say anything," he muttered.

Suddenly, a little round, silver ball was flying at Weasley's head. Upon impact, it made a satisfied smashing noise against his skull, and then fell into several shards on the ground. Weasley looked utterly shocked, a hand clapped to the red mark of his forehead.

"Sorry, Professor," growled Hermione, waving her wand savagely at the thing so it repaired itself. It sailed in the air, but Hermione wasn't exactly watching where she aimed. Draco caught it before it could go through a wall or anything, and handed it back to Dumbledore, who looked a _little_ bit amused.

"What the hell was that for?" yelled Weasley.

"Insulting Draco!" Hermione shouted shrilly back. She was on her feet now, fists clenched and legs a reasonable distance apart, in the typical Hermione yelling position. Her face was screwed up, and turning slightly red as she yelled at him. "You need to get over the fact that maybe your worst enemy isn't as bad as you think! You hate him even more now that I'm dating him, which makes _no sense_ because I've _asked _you to be supportive, haven't I?"

"You're screwing everything up!" bellowed Weasley, turning a deep red as he lost his temper. Draco smirked.

"Screwing _what_ up, Ronald?" yelled Hermione. "The little idea you have in your head, of Harry and you and me being bestest friends forever and living together and-"

"Kinky," muttered Draco under his breath, more than a little disgusted.

"You, shut up," warned Hermione, turning to kiss him lightly on the cheek before whirling back to face Weasley with her yelling face on again.

"_Everything_!" Weasley nearly screamed. "Don't pretend you didn't know it, Hermione! We were... we were supposed to be together! I knew it, you knew it, Harry knew it... for Merlin's sake, my goddamn _parents_ knew it! It would have worked out, too! It _would _have! But you've screwed it up, all for _him_!"

Draco would have been offended if he hadn't been so interested by Weasley's little declaration. Now, the shit had _really_ hit the fan, and if things went the way he planned, some of Weasley's severed body parts soon would be as well.

"Oh, I'm _sorry_ if my life was planned out for me without me knowing _or_ agreeing to it! Yeah, I'll admit, I thought we were going to date at some point! See, I said it! But I've found someone who I like and who likes me for _me_, not because I do his _homework_! I'm sorry, Ronald, but some of your little perfect plans aren't going to turn out the way you want, because _the world doesn't revolve around you_! It _is_ my life, after all!"

"You're making a mistake!"

"You know what?" she said slowly, trying to calm down. Draco felt an overwhelming to touch her, knowing that the feel of his hand on her back would make her stop yelling. But he wanted to see how this would turn out. He hoped that Hermione would throw something else at him.

"No, _what_?" shouted Weasley.

Draco smirked. He was a loser.

"If things had ever not worked with Draco... or if I hadn't started liking him in the first place... maybe you would have had a chance," she said, speaking carefully. Draco bristled. 'If things had ever not worked with Draco'. Charming. Her next words stopped him from worrying. "But now I know that I don't intend to leave Draco, as long as he wants me, and that any miniscule fragment of a chance you may have ever had has just gone up in flames. Because, Ronald Weasley, you are a jerk."

He was gaping like a fish. His mouth slowly opened and closed as his eyes were fixed on Hermione. Draco didn't see why he was so surprised. Weasley already knew that he was a jerk, of course, and that he had once had a chance with Hermione, and that now that chance had been dashed into the ground, spat on a few times and served back to him on a golden platter. Yum.

"Professor Dumbledore?" asked Hermione timidly. "Do you mind if we go? I mean, um, is there anything we can do?"

"No, you're quite right, Miss Granger," he said, sighing slightly and rubbing the crooked bridge of his nose. "Back to class, I assume? If you are in shock – understandable, after receiving a death threat – you could rest in your dormitory."

"Class," said Hermione immediately, striding to the door. "Thank you, Professor."

She swept from the room, and Weasley stormed after her, determinedly in the opposite direction. Draco was about to follow, to congratulate her for her successful yelling match, which she had totally won, and had vague plans of kissing her senseless until she forgot about Voldemort and the death threat and everything.

"Draco?" called Dumbledore's withered voice.

Draco sighed, still facing out of the doorway. Hermione turned around, halfway to the stairs, with a puzzled expression on her face. 'Go on,' he mouthed, and she shrugged and skipped to the platform. Draco inhaled and then exhaled once, and then turned around to face Dumbledore. "Yes, Professor?"

"Sit, please."

Well, that sounded a tad more ominous than it usually would. He sat unsurely, watching Dumbledore.

"I'm going to need you to keep an eye on her," said Dumbledore, all in a rush that sounded uncharacteristic for the old man. "I've strengthened Hogwarts' boundaries until they're as impregnable as I can get them, but Lord Voldemort is a very strong wizard. He is sly. He can trick his way into places... people... which is why I don't think Hermione should be alone. You, of course, are aware of the way his mind works. You are the obvious candidate."

"So what are we talking here?" asked Draco, trying not to sound too eager. "Accompanying her to classes, that's a given, of course..."

"Staying with her in your spare time... I'm sure that won't be a problem, will it?" Dumbledore's eyes twinkled somewhat as Draco concentrated on not blushing.

"Not at all, sir," he said hurriedly.

Dumbledore nodded. Draco stood up to leave. Dumbledore's voice followed after him, soft and uncertain, as if he was viewing Draco as an equal for once. "You... love her, don't you?"

"As opposed to what, using her to make Slytherin hate me?" he asked coolly. "Yeah, you're totally right. I get a kick out of treating girls like dirt, you know, pretending to like them until they like me back, then crushing them like the sadistic monster everybody seems to think I am."

"Well, Mr Malfoy, it's nice to know you feel so strongly about this," said Dumbledore, looking satisfied. "Sarcasm doesn't quite become you, but it _is_ good that you seem to be so against the idea."

"Just because I'm a Slytherin, a Malfoy... it doesn't mean I'm going to treat her badly. Anyway, she's just a girl, and I'm just a guy. That's all there is to it."

This time, Draco did leave, and he ran to catch Hermione up before their next class. He spotted her, facing away from him as she hurried to the Charms room. She was bent over a book in her hands, already immersed in it.

"Hey there," he said, jogging until he was keeping pace with her. His longer legs made longer strides, however, and she fell a little behind.

She glanced up, and tilted her head. "What did Professor Dumbledore want?"

"To borrow some porn."

Hermione glared at him, shoving her book in her bag and taking the most care possible to not look at him – however strongly she was drawn to his exceptionally handsome face. He grinned, and lazily stretched his arm around her shoulder. She stiffened, but kept walking, not shoving him away.

"See?" he murmured. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"I guess not," she said, emphasising her sigh.

He pulled her closer, and she freed an arm from where it was delving into her bookbag, and wrapped it around his waist. He smiled at that, and the reluctant look on her face as she tightened her grip, signalling the very opposite of what her face was trying to portray.

As they lingered at the doorway to the Charms classroom – since Draco had Transfiguration now – he pulled her into another kiss, and murmured in her ear, "You know, Dumbledore wants me to keep an eye on you."

"An eye?" asked Hermione, obviously having her interest caught. "How close an eye, exactly?"

"Exactly my question," he said with a slight smirk. "I was thinking general bodyguard, perhaps... following you everywhere, never letting you leave my sight..."

"Well, good luck with that. I've got to get in there. Should we start it after Charms?"

He groaned as he remembered that he _would_ have to let her leave his sight. As she swung into the room, one hand gripping the doorway, she lifted the other in a gesture of farewell. He returned it wistfully, and hurried to Transfiguration. McGonagall gave him a nasty look, which he subsequently ignored. Blaise was doodling on a scrap of parchment. As Draco slid into the seat next to him, he realised that he had been drawing an incredibly creepy number of love hearts.

"Merlin, Blaise. _Now_ who's whipped?"

"I am not whipped," said Blaise haughtily, carefully scribing the 'I' in 'KIM' into the centre of one of the hearts. "I am simply lovestruck. It's a manly lovestruckness, you see."

"Of course, Blaise," said Draco sympathetically, turning his head to smirk down at his desk.

McGonagall levitated toads at all of them. Draco nudged his with his wand. It didn't seem to like that. It swelled up a little. Draco grinned at Blaise, who was busy carving Kim's name into the desk with his wand.

"Blaise!" he hissed. "I thought you were against desecrating this dumb school?"

"S'not desecrating," Blaise responded dreamily. "It's _Kim_."

"Whipped whipped whipped," said Draco very fast under his breath, before a shadow appeared on his desk as McGonagall appeared in front of him.

"Right, Mr Malfoy. It's your turn. Show the class what you've learnt," she said, her tone betraying that she obviously had doubts that he was smart enough to learn.

He peered at the blackboard under her arm, and read the incantation. McGonagall obviously noticed, because a moment later, the board was blank. He could only remember the first half of the spell, and the wand movement.

"Go on," prompted McGonagall, lips pressed together in a thin line that could have been disapproval or trying not to laugh at Draco's expense.

He scowled. Blaise scrawled something with on the back of his parchment. Draco scanned it hastily, feeling McGonagall's eyes on the back of his neck.

"_Confringo_," he read obediently, waving and then jabbing his wand at the toad. He vaguely wondered where he'd seen that spell before, until-

"Argh!" was the general cry shrieked by every person in the classroom. The toad had exploded, sending little bits of toad guts everywhere. McGonagall was standing there, her mouth open, with the poor, dismembered leg of the toad stuck to her glasses, slowly sliding down them.

"Uh oh," said Draco and Blaise under their breaths, at the same time.

They'd taken the main hit of the blast. Aside from the mild singeing they'd both received, they were covered in toad. Blaise looked horrified. Draco was disgusted, and felt sorry for the toad. He didn't _enjoy_ being cruel to things – unless it was Weasley. Although, this one hadn't _exactly_ been _entirely_ his fault. He'd _known_ he'd seen the bloody spell somewhere else.

"That..." McGonagall managed to say, "was the incorrect incantation." She swept her wand, and all of the muck covering everything disappeared. Draco was still left with a vaguely bare feeling above his eyes.

"You don't say," muttered Pansy Parkinson, fixing her hair in the reflection of the window.

"Detention, Parkinson!" barked McGonagall, gliding away from Draco, who sighed in relief.

The class went on, albeit with Parkinson's face transformed into almighty pout. As soon as they were let out, he raced for the door, wanting to find Hermione. She was already there, waiting for him with her head buried in a book. The book disappeared, however, when she caught sight of him. And then she laughed.

"What happened to _you_?" she asked, trying to cover her mouth.

"Big bang," he grumbled, holding out his hand. He hoped that she would take it, so that they could get away from the not-so-well concealed snickers.

"Wait," she said, getting out her wand. "You've got no eyebrows, you know." She must have done a wordless spell, because he felt a few pricks around his eyebrow area. When he put up a hand to tentatively feel them, they were back at the right length. Pity she didn't stop the spell.

"Hermione!" he exclaimed, horrified. He lifted a hand, and felt the eyebrows that had to be about an inch long already. "Take it off!"

They drooped down over his eyes now, obscuring his view so that all he could do was make out her dark shape as she twirled away from him, laughing. The corridor was empty now, as everyone hurried to get back to the common rooms now that it was the end of the classes. He had no qualms about chasing her, growling and sounding rather animalistic. She just laughed, the sound carrying back to him and advising him which way to turn – now that his eyes were completely covered. In fact, almost his entire face was hidden by his now-bushy eyebrows. It made Hermione laugh that much harder.

"Hermione," he called enticingly. "Please come take the spell off. We all know I'm so much better looking when you can see my pretty face."

"Arrogance isn't going to get you de-spelled, Draco," she called joyfully. He heard a door opening, and used his hands to move his eyebrow hair away from his eyes so he could see. He followed her through it, and realised that they were in the Room of Requirement.

He tackled her onto the couch that had appeared, laughing. He pinned her to it, saying menacingly, "If you don't take the spell off, I'll-"

Giggling, she responded, "You'll what, Draco?"

That stumped him. He racked his brains. Hard.

"How about... if I _do_ take it off? What will you do then, Draco?" she teased.

"Snog you senseless," he said with confidence.

She rolled her eyes.

"What can I say?" he asked, shrugging modestly. "I'm just a guy."

She wriggled her wand out of her pocket, and shot the anti-incantation at him. With a sigh of relief, he felt his eyebrows shrinking away from his face. She stopped them properly this time, and beamed expectantly at him.

"That wasn't very nice," he warned.

"Sorry," she said unapologetically, as he brought his lips to her. No, he wasn't sorry either, especially when it turned out like this.


	11. Return of the ahems

_Author's Note: Aren't you proud? I updated faster! (This is where you guys applaud)_

_Now, I'm sure you guys have all read enough to my Author's Notes to know that they can usually be skipped, and this one is no exception... BUT I'd like to give a mention to one of my favourite fanfic friends, BlueSpottedDog, who is constant, always there to review when I'm feeling neglected. Just saying... BlueSpottedDog kicks butt. Really really hard, too._

_And before anyone gets on my ass about it, - you'll understand later - I made up the word 'franticity'. 'Franticness' just wasn't doing it for me. Sometimes, I have this weird feeling that Draco and I have that in common..._

_Also, the 'ahem' in the title, in case you didn't get that, is a bad word that I shouldn't really write in a fanfiction, where any poor innocent soul could stumble across it... cough Kimbibly, I mean you. _

_Another little note... Draco's being a little OOC in this one... a little at the start, but that OOC-ness isn't so unbelieva__ble 'coz he's obviously head over heels for Hermione. At breakfast, however... Draco is just displaying his own little form of ecstaticness. People do it different. Draco makes fountains with his food._

_Chapter 11_

Return of the... ahems

Draco Malfoy had a great many talents. One of his extra special favourites was his ability to get what he wanted. Always.

As soon as Hermione voiced the opinion that perhaps she ought to be getting back to her dorm, Draco began to exercise this ability. He started whining.

"But _Hermione_," he pleaded, putting on his puppy dog pout and getting down on his knees in front of her. "You can't leave me alone!"

"You could go back to _your_ dormitory," she pointed out.

"And do what?" he demanded. "Besides, Dumbledore said that I was to keep a very close eye on you. A _very_ close eye."

Hermione seemed torn for a second, and then she sighed. "Okay," she bargained. "I won't go back to my dorm. But you have to deal with the consequences, okay?"

"I can deal with that," said Draco, sitting down on the plush red couch. Hermione slowly collapsed next to him, and snatched up a book that appeared on the table with a short '_pop!_' She began to read, getting more and more immersed in the story. Draco watched, his brows furrowed. He was debating in his head, over whether he should think about how beautiful she was, or about how to make her concentrate on _him_.

After a few minutes, Hermione looked up, startled. "What?" she asked frantically. "Do I have something in my teeth?"

He shook his head slowly. She ducked hers, flushing pink.

"Don't be embarrassed," he said softly. "You're _pretty_."

She settled her face into his shoulder. He had a feeling it was half to hide from his adoring gaze... _Merlin, he was whipped_. He pressed his lips fondly to her forehead, and felt her breath, tickling his neck, begin to slow. She fell asleep very quickly. Draco couldn't count the number of nights he'd lain on his bed, staring at the ceiling, before he succumbed to sleep. And people wondered why he had circles under his eyes...

As much as he would have liked to stay there, with her slumped over him, he had a feeling that it might be a little uncomfortable for them both in the morning. He slid out from under her, settling her against a pillow and magically finding a blanket to cover her with. Once that was done, and he was assured that she wouldn't die of hypothermia or anything in the night, he dragged over an armchair, placing it right by the couch. He sat in it quietly, trying not to make any noise that would wake her up. She deserved to sleep, after going through so much within such a short time. Now that he mentioned it, he kind of deserved some sleep as well, but he wasn't complaining. If his prospects were sleep, or sitting here, watching his angel sleep, he knew which he'd choose. And he got his wish, too. He stayed up for hours, watching her, anxiously checking when her breathing got a little too quiet.

When Hermione woke up, Draco was asleep in the armchair. Dreaming of her, of course. He felt warm breath on his cheek, and something soft pressing against it, and then heard light footsteps. He opened his eyes. Hermione was creeping past him, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders over her uniform, to the refrigerator that had appeared.

"Good morning, sleepy head," she teased, standing on her tiptoes to reach the jug of pumpkin juice at the top of the fridge.

"Hi," he said softly, levering himself out of the armchair and coming up behind her.

She laughed at the feel of his hands suddenly around her waist, and then turned around to face him. There was a serious look in her eyes, as she said disapprovingly, "Please don't tell me you've been in that chair all night."

"I haven't been in the chair all night," he said obediently.

She pursed her lips. "And now the truth?"

"Contradicting statements, dear one. Which would you like?" he said casually, hooking one strong arm around her as she tried to turn to replace the jug. She swung back around, laughing. The juice was coming perilously close to spilling from the jug, and Draco had a vague feeling that perhaps it might land on him. Things always seemed to work out that way, somehow.

"You must be _dead_," she commented, brushing her hand along his neck. He caught his reflection in a mirror on the wall. He looked, quite frankly, like crap. His hair was all sticky uppy and the circles under his eyes, formerly inch-circumferenced light purple rings, now something equal to two black holes which his eyes only just managed to keep from being sucked into.

His gaze still on the mirror, he felt two hands on his chest, and saw a little half-head of brown hair pop into the mirror – hardly able to reach it at all. He smiled, and refocused his attention on something slightly more solid than a reflection. The real Hermione was so much better.

"Not dead," he managed to say. "Just a little deceased."

"You are absurd." She said the words softly, as she absentmindedly folded the blanket that was wrapped around her. Her uniform was crumpled and creased – so was his – but she didn't seem to care. She buzzed around, settling things and cleaning and putting them back in their correct places, no matter how often Draco informed her that it would right itself.

"So, breakfast?" he asked casually.

She nodded quickly.

"What's wrong?" He caught her shoulders and turned her so that she was facing him. She looked worried.

"Imagine what they're all going to say," she whispered.

"Oh, 'Mione," he said, pulling her out the door. She protested, stretching for her books. He made them hover behind them as they walked, so that she didn't have to carry them. As they descended a flight of stairs, he elaborated on his previous statement. "I wouldn't think you were the sort to be affected by gossip... except that it made you want to kill me, last time," he added as an afterthought.

She laughed slightly, and pulled him around the corner that would lead them into the main hallway. He had apparently cheered her up, by referring to her former hatred of him. _Bit disturbing_, he decided.

He leant towards her, and murmured in her ear, "What are you going to say when Potty asks where you were last night? Because really, you _do_ look like-"

She glared at him.

"So, you hungry?" he asked, changing the subject very very quickly.

"I feel like a donut."

"And you look like one too." He beamed with pleasure at his own joke. "Gosh, I'm funny."

Hermione scowled at him, and swept into the Great Hall.

"Hermione," he tried to say.

She grinned at him, letting him know that she understood his joke – even if she hadn't exactly been impressed by it. Relieved, he leant in to kiss her. Still with a coy little smirk on her face, she took a step backwards so he missed, and drifted towards the Gryffindor table. He stared after her, his mouth agape. She glanced back, and blew him a kiss as Kim intercepted her and started talking very enthusiastically, complete with hand gestures and everything. With a sigh, Draco made his way over to Blaise.

"Hello, Draco," he said pleasantly, glancing at Draco over the edge of the newspaper he was reading – okay, _pretending_ to read. "Has anybody told you that you look like you've just been sha-"

"Shut up, Blaise," sang Draco, trying to calculate how much toast he could ingest while leaving at least a third of his stomach space for the fried egg/bagel combination he was planning on concocting. Math had never been his strong point, so he estimated half the stack.

Blaise surveyed him carefully, as Draco proceeded to demolish his toast. Halfway through, he gasped, and got out his wand.

"What?" asked Blaise, his eyes betraying a little franticity as they shot to the wide double doors. Kim was a muggleborn, too.

Draco was paying no attention to Blaise. He had carved a cavity in his pile of toast, and was now making it erupt with scrambled eggs.

"Look! A volcano!" he exclaimed, pointing proudly to his work of art.

"_Really_ Draco, how old are you?" asked Blaise scornfully, moving his paper before the eggs slimed onto it.

"I'm just _happy_," said Draco, trying to get his mouth over the hole. He couldn't get the eggs to aim right.

"Yes, I understand that," said Blaise. "Wasn't the last time you played with your breakfast... that time when you cursed Pansy Parkinson so she was cross eyed for a week or something?"

"Two weeks," said Draco smugly.

Blaise shouldn't have reminded him of that. Draco could almost feel his head swelling a little more.

"Shouldn't have reminded you of that," muttered Blaise.

Draco grinned, and got to his feet. He had spotted a familiar short head, coming towards him with a fiery look in her eyes. She looked determined. Uh oh.

"Hello, Hermione," he said tentatively.

She just growled at him.

"Something wrong?" he asked, trying to sound pleasant.

"Thirty six."

"Sorry?"

"Thirty six people have told me what they think I spent last night doing." Her voice was clipped and precise. She looked _pissed_.

"Is that including me this morning?" he asked, in a failed attempt to lighten the mood.

"Thirty seven, then." Her scowl grew in pissed-offedness, and he wished he hadn't reminded her.

Wordlessly, he took her hand and led her out of the Great Hall. He had been _considering _showing her his awesome breakfast volcano, but somehow had a feeling she might not be as impressed with it as he had been. Instead, he pulled her out into the corridor, his mind swimming in vague plans of kissing her enthusiastically until she forgot about how many people had annoyed her.

Evidently, the corridor had been a mistake. Pansy Parkinson was striding down it, looking every bit the arrogant, self-satisfied tart that she was.

"_Shi_-" Draco began to hiss, but Hermione clapped her hand over his mouth and pulled him behind a pillar.

He wasn't exactly sure why. After what Parkinson had done to her, he was surprised that she wasn't running over to slap her head off or something. Although, if Hermione didn't feel up to it, Draco would be more than happy to comply.

Almost immediately, a large band of cackling Slytherin girls rushed up to Parkinson, and began to hit her with a volley of – mostly annoyed – questions. Draco couldn't believe his ears. That's right. Pansy Parkinson was officially not cool. Nobody liked her. Draco would have clasped his hands together, gotten down on his knees, and prayed to whichever Muggle god was available at the time, but he didn't. That would just be, like, _totally_ embarrassing. He contented himself with pulling Hermione to him and kissing her briefly on the mouth instead. She didn't seem to mind.

"Why don't you go kick her-"

She covered his mouth with her hand again, giving him a look that said 'Shut up or die. Seriously. Die.' He did, and stuck his head around to watch Parkinson some more. Hermione wriggled in front of him, and he supported himself with her shoulders as he leant out to get a better view.

"What are you doing back, _Pansy_?" cooed a blonde girl, tossing her volumes of straw-y hair behind her anorexic shoulders and pursing her lips.

"Dumbledore agreed to let me stay until the end of the term," said Pansy, pausing to suck her top lip between her teeth and shooting a seductive look towards the doors, before turning back to the blonde and flashing her a wide smile.

"And then what?" demanded a tall, slender girl with a body like a supermodel and a face like a horse.

"Then I'm going to that school in Scotland," responded Pansy, opening her mouth slightly while she slid on a bucketful of candy floss lip gloss.

"Aww!" everyone began to complain, secretly smiling at each other.

The blonde girl said, "That's _such_ a pity," before she gave a satisfied nod and strode off, her two cronies flanking her.

Pansy ignored them. She pushed up her hair, glanced at herself in the reflection of her watch, beamed at her image and then turned to face the doors. "Here I come, Drakey," she said, licking her lips and shifting her weight onto the other hip, before she pushed the doors open.

After a short pause, during which Hermione and Draco stared at the doors after Pansy, Draco came to his senses.

"I need to have a word to Dumbledore."

"I need to have a word to Pansy Parkinson."

They both looked at each other.

"I'll take Parkinson first," said Draco hastily, just as Hermione said uncertainly, "I should probably speak to Dumbledore before you."

They nodded simultaneously, and began walking in separate ways. The giant doors slammed open, and they both jumped, and dove back behind the pillar.

At that moment, Blaise walked by, Kim on his arm. Unfortunately for him, Pansy spotted him.

"_Blaise_!" she whined. "Where's Drakey? And why's everyone ignoring me?"

"Parkinson," he said coldly, inclining his head. "You're back."

"Yep!" she said cheerfully, obviously not detecting the freezing liquid nitrogen pouring off him. Kim was giving her a very dirty look. Hermione smirked.

"What a pity," he muttered.

"Huh?" asked Pansy, screwing up her face into a look of confusion.

Louder this time, he said, "I _said_, 'what a pity'. Here we all were, thinking you were rotting away in Azkaban or something. What did you do? Sleep with Fudge or something to get a shorter sentence?"

She gasped, and smacked a hand to her mouth in shock. "Blaise! I can't believe you said that!"

"Bye Parkinson!" said Kim cheerfully, giggling as Blaise put his arm around her and pulled her around the corner.

Pansy was standing there, looking utterly dumbstruck. Draco wanted to laugh. He let out a little chuckle, which he tried – and failed – to stifle. Hermione's hand was instantly covering his mouth again, although he could see that she was trying her utmost to stop _herself_ from laughing. He licked her, eliciting a small gasp of disgust. Draco couldn't help it. He started laughing properly.

"_Draco Malfoy!_" shrieked Pansy Parkinson, skidding around the side of the pillar so that she could see them. "You stop right there!"

"Wasn't going anywhere," he responded. "But hey, now that you've got me where you want me, I was thinking we could have a chat."

She gasped, beaming, and all in a stream of joyful shrilling, exclaimed, "OfcourseI'llgooutwithyou!"

He raised an eyebrow. "_Actually, _I wanted to-"

Hermione took a step forward and slapped her in the face.

Draco felt his jaw drop, and drop. It was somewhere around his ankles when he regained control long enough to let out a loud guffaw of laughter.

Hermione looked furious. Her face was tinged pink, and her lips were redder than usual and her eyes were spitting flames at Parkinson. She looked _sexy_. Draco watched in awe as she withdrew her wand and sent a great gushing billowing chunk of purple magic at Parkinson, who was sprouting a red mark in – what do you know? – the shape of Hermione's palm, fingers slightly outspread. That was nothing, however, compared to what happened when the magic hit her. It raised her off the ground, and kept lifting until she was bobbing somewhere around the ceiling, at the same time as it released a pack of buzzing black blurs. That was some pretty advanced magic, or so Draco would have thought if he wasn't concentrating upon the swarm of creatures – whatever they were – that were descending on Parkinson.

She let out a scream that made his skin crawl, long, shrill and piercing, as she rammed into the ceiling, high above them. She was barely visible in the fog of black that was surrounding her, vaguely throbbing as each individual creature buzzed.

"Doxy," panted Hermione. "Fred and George told me how to do it."

Draco observed her for a moment, and then commented, "You _really_ wanted to explode her, didn't you?"

"To a crisp," she said hurriedly. "Think I should leave her there?"

"You're kidding, right?" he inquired, and pulled her away. His arm snaked around her shoulders, and he sighed peacefully. "I'm proud of you. You've finally shown that you _do_ have the ability to be not-very-nice."

When he was hovering above the ceiling a few seconds later, he took it back, loudly and emphatically, so that she'd let him down.

* * *

_A/N: YAY! Hermione got a 'lil revenge on Parkinson! Fun!_

_Also, Kimbibly... my reward for this chapter and the three before it can be a four-pack of Kinder Chocolate, mkay? See, that way instead of getting me four 50 cent wollipops, you can just get me one of them! Aren't I economicalic? _

* * *


	12. The Slimiest Git He'd Ever Met

_Author's Note: Argh! She's back! Scary! Sorry for the delay. I promise things will get fun in the next chapter after this one. Pinky promise, in fact. sticks out pinky for you to shake_

_Chapter 12_

The Slimiest Git He'd Ever Met

If there was one thing Draco enjoyed most in the whole entire world, it would be a toss up between watching Pansy Parkinson being mauled by a herd of Doxy, or guilt-tripping Hermione into kissing him for levitating him to the ceiling. As Hermione proceeded with the latter, he decided most emphatically that he preferred the kissing.

A loud shriek distracted them both from their rather enjoyable activity. For a moment there, Draco had almost forgotten about Pansy Parkinson, being jerked around in the air with small, barely visible movements by Hermione's wand. She'd just smacked into a wall again.

"What do you think you're doing?" came a barking, rough voice that issued from the throat in the neck that attached the greasy head to the body of a certain Potions professor.

Draco winced, and turned to face Snape. Snape, of course, was glaring at him and Hermione.

Hermione responded calmly, "Getting a little revenge on Pansy Parkinson," as she waved her wand in circles. Parkinson's responding movements were incredibly amusing.

Snape's dark, beetly eyes followed the shape of the girl in the air, before they wandered to the door. "Oh. Carry on, then," he said, and swept through the door he had been studying.

"Professor Snape!" bellowed Pansy. "Help me!"

"Too late, sweet cheeks!" called Zacharias Smith, a smirk on his face as he sauntered past.

A second later, Zacharias Smith had something slimy dripping down the side of his face. He stood there, astounded. "She _spat_ at me!" he exclaimed.

Pansy screamed, "_I hate you, you-_" Here, she inserted a word which should not be used in polite conversation. In fact, if it is ever written down, the writer is guaranteed to go up in flames within a few seconds. If it is spoken, on the other hand... well, the results of that were facing Pansy Parkinson a few seconds later.

Every person walking through the hallway, all assuming that she was addressing _them_, had their wands trained upon Pansy, and vicious expressions on their faces. The little Weasley took the initiative here, surrounded by a little group of her male follows, and yelled, "Let's get her, boys!"

When hexes started flying, that was Draco's cue to skedaddle. He grabbed Hermione by the wrist – noting the longing in her eyes to join in with the cursing – and pulled her out of the corridor, onto one of the rotating staircases. Hermione was breathing heavily, her face alight with excitement.

"Happy with your revenge?" he asked, laughing at the look on her face.

"No way," she said immediately. "Revenge has to be equal or greater. I'm only just getting started."

"Merlin, Hermione. Getting a little... oh, I don't know... _Slytherin-y_?"

They stepped off the staircase, and ran into a little raven-haired stick of a loser, with glasses in which Draco could see his fantastic reflection, and a scar on his forehead that Draco enjoyed making fun of.

"Harry! What's wrong?"

"Erm, Hermione? It's Ron. I think you'd better come see this," said Potter uncertainly, leading Hermione to the Gryffindor common room.

Well, Draco wasn't going to miss an opportunity like this, was he? Besides, Hermione's fingernails were digging into his hand and he didn't think he could free himself without losing a great deal of flesh.

He followed along willingly, at the same time exhibiting a half-hearted attempt to detach Hermione's claws from within his arm. Needless to say, he didn't succeed.

The Fat Lady stared him up and down, and gave Hermione a meaningful look.

"Oh, come _on_," she exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "He's not going to blow up the place!"

The Fat Lady sniffed. "I should hope not." With her nose upturned, she swung open to admit the three of them. Weasley was sitting in the common room. Actually, the correct preposition would be 'on'. As in, the edge of. As in, the edge of the window sill. With his feet dangling down, a depressed look on his face, and snow blowing in from the open window. Ronald Weasley was sitting in the window.

"Ron!" shrieked Hermione. "What are you doing?"

"Sitting," he said sullenly.

Draco felt a hand on his chest. Before he could open his mouth to object to the close contact, Potter put a finger to his lips and continued pushing him back, while taking long, slow strides backwards himself. They hovered on the edge of the room, watching curiously. Draco was too interested to even bother glaring at Potter.

"Ron," coaxed Hermione. "Why don't you come back inside? It's much warmer in here."

"No."

"Why not?" she asked desperately.

"Don't wanna."

"What the hell is he doing?" hissed Draco.

Potter hissed back, "Haven't a clue! I think he's depressed."

"No, _really_?" said Draco sarcastically.

Meanwhile, Hermione was slowly approaching Weasley, obviously forming some idea of getting a hold of him and yanking.

"Come on Ron... let's be reasonable about this..."

"A reasonable Weasley... what an oxymoron," muttered Draco.

"What did you call me?" demanded Weasley, sliding forward a little.

Draco tried not to snort, but the temptation was just too great. Potter bit his lip. Draco wasn't quite sure if he was disapproving, or just trying to stifle his own sound of amusement. When Hermione whipped around and glared at him, he was pretty sure that he knew what _she_ meant.

She let out a little gasp. Weasley was sitting right on the very edge of the sill now. Draco had been too busy chuckling to notice that he'd moved forward a little. He'd never really picked Weasley for the suicidal type, but he guessed that it's always the quiet, obnoxious, annoying ones.

"Ronald!" yelled Hermione. "Get your fat arse off that ledge this _instant_!"

"Fat arse?" whispered Potter. Draco grinned.

"What if I don't want to?" bellowed Weasley. "You've made it perfectly clear that I'm a good-for-nothing idiot who screws everything up!"

"You forgot to add 'big feet'," said Draco helpfully. A look from Hermione made him cringe back to the doorway.

Potter stepped forward. "Ron, you don't want to do this?"

"Don't I?" he demanded, and jumped.

"_No!_"

Draco, Hermione and Potter all had their wands aimed at Weasley, holding him immobile in the air, within seconds. It was amazing, how in that time of crisis, three fully accomplished teenaged wizards had managed to forget their powers. Luckily they'd remembered them now. He'd managed to fall about halfway between the window and the ground, and the three of them were all half hanging out the window to get a look at him. Weasley had his arms folded and a very unhappy look on his face.

Suddenly, a little kid popped out from behind a snow barricade. "Hey Ron!" it yelled up. "Does this mean I can have my mattress back?" It walked over to a section of snow below the window, and levitated a great chunk of snow, which proceeded to wiggle until the snow was gone and it was left, a simple mattress. The kid kept his wand pointing at the mattress and rested it on his shoulder as he strode away, like one of those sticks with a handkerchief holding a sandwich or something on it, that kids always make when they're pretending to run away from home. Well, _Draco_ had, anyway.

"Oh no he _didn't_," muttered Draco.

"Idiot," breathed Potter.

"_Ronald Weasley!_" screamed Hermione at the top of her lungs. "_You are a jerk! A stupid, self-centred arrogant jerk! I can't believe I fell for that! And now, because you're such a jerk, I'm going to let you fall! No mattress there to catch you now, is there?_"

Potter shook his head slightly at Draco, who took the gesture to mean that he _probably_ shouldn't remove his own levitating spell until Hermione was safely out of the room with a drink in her hand. Or, like, water or something.

Hermione released her spell, and was obviously quite perplexed at the fact that Weasley wasn't falling to his doom. Draco took her by the elbow and led her away from the window – effectively cancelling out his own spell due to lack of attention. Weasley's scream alerted them all to that fact – since Potter had begun to casually stroll away from the window – and they all raced back and re-enchanted him. Well, Draco and Potter did, anyway. Hermione was standing by the fire with her arms crossed.

"Vicious circle we got going here, hey?" said Draco, trying to lighten the mood.

"I can't believe he tried to jump out a window," commented Potter. "And didn't even do it right. I mean, a _mattress_?"

"I know, I'm disappointed in him too. Should have gone without. Better splat."

"_That's _a little gruesome," said Hermione from her place by the fire.

They both looked over at her. She had cracked a tiny smile, probably at the talk of Weasley going _splat!_ Draco didn't blame her. Talking about it made him happy too.

"Help!" came the strangled screech from outside the window. They all sauntered back at their own paces, even Potter. Draco had a feeling that perhaps Weasley's little antics weren't so amusing to him anymore. Hermione got there first, somehow, even though her saunter was far slower and more impressive than theirs. She let out a scream that sent Draco running.

Weasley was still dangling there, all right. It wasn't like they'd forgotten to concentrate on their spells, and he'd started plummeting towards the ground which now seemed extraordinarily hard. He was still there, but he was being attacked. By a large group of Death Eaters, who were shooting spells like there was no tomorrow.

A second later, Weasley was skidding along the carpet in the common room, complaining as he did so. Hermione's wand was still flicked upwards, obviously having been the source of the spell which had bunjeed him back into the tower. The colour had drained from her face, and she was a particularly pale shade of white.

Potter had raced to the window, reckless in the face of danger. He sent down a few spells, but they didn't seem to do much. By now, a crowd was gathering in the common room. People had heard about Weasley's 'suicide jump' and had come to get an eyeful of that. Now, they were getting more than enough of an eyeful than anyone would ever want to get, of a sight that they hadn't particularly wanted to see.

Seamus Finnigan raced forward, his arms bulging with what looked like khaki coloured water balloons. Potter's eyes lit up. He grabbed a few, and hurled them down at the group of Death Eaters, along with Seamus as he unleashed his armful. The Death Eaters started coughing, and running around like mad people. Well, madd_er_ people anyway. Draco could almost see the stench.

"They aren't real Death Eaters," observed Draco wearily, stepping back from the window.

"Obviously," agreed Hermione.

"What?" asked Longbottom. "They looked real to _me_!"

Hermione, Draco and Potter all stared at him, but Draco especially. He'd always known the boy was mentally a couple of centuries behind the rest of the population, but he'd hoped that he had at least a smidgen of common sense. Ah, it was a shame, what the world was coming to these days.

"What?"

Longbottom didn't seem to understand why they all seemed so mortified by his incapability to process.

"Do you _really_ think a group of _Death Eaters_ would _run away _after having a _stink bomb_ thrown at them?" demanded Hermione.

"Again with the emphasising, 'Mione. We've spoken about this, remember?"

She shot him a glare. He shut up.

"But Dumbledore ought to be notified."

"I'll go," said Weasley Junior, and raced off with Dean Thomas in tow.

"All right!" yelled Potter. "You can all clear out now!"

One boy stepped forward, and said, "Uh, dude? We're all Gryffindors. How else would we have gotten in?"

"Right." Potter slunk back into the shadows.

"I'd better be going," Draco informed Hermione gently, catching her arm on his way past. "Blaise'll be wanting to hear about the jump."

She laughed slightly. "Yeah, can't leave Blaise hanging." She let out an almost imperceptible sigh. Draco grinned.

"Does _somebody_ want me to stay?" he asked innocently.

"Now, why would you think a think like that? Be gone with you. Shoo!"

She totally didn't want him to go, Draco decided. So he didn't. Well, technically, he did _go_, but he conveniently chose to bring her along with him.

"Where are you taking me?" she demanded.

"It pains me the way you are instantly so suspicious of me," he said, clutching a hand to his heart. "I was thinking we ought to play hooky again."

"Yeah. That was fun. And it wasn't bad enough for you with the _fifty-two times_?"

"I thought it was thirty-seven?"

"That was at breakfast."

"Oh."

They walked down the hallway in more or less a peaceable silence. Draco was quite pleased. He'd obviously convinced her to spend yet another night in more or less isolation with him and a bed. Not that he was thinking dirty things, of course...

Hermione smacked him in the chest. "Stop thinking that! I intend to keep a fair distance between you, me and the bed."

"Hey!" he objected, wondering how she had read his mind.

She sighed, and held out a hand. He took it gratefully, and let her pull him into the Room of Requirement. Kim and Blaise were already there, making out on the sofa.

"Oh, jeez!"

They backed out hurriedly, not wanting to interrupt any more than they had to, and especially not wanting to _see_ any more than they already had.

"For the love of Merlin," cursed Draco, shutting the door firmly behind them. "I'm scarred for life!"

"They were fully dressed," Hermione reminded him.

"Like that's much of an impediment for Blaise," he muttered, pulling Hermione around a corner.

"Oh, God. I don't like where this is going."

He pushed her against the wall, leaning casually against it supported by his elbow, somewhere near her head. "Getting too graphic for you?"

"It's getting too implicative for me," she corrected, pulling a disgusted face.

He leant in, smiling, to kiss her.

They were thrown apart by a burst of bright blue light, which had streamed from a wand held in the hand of a very unhappy looking Pansy Parkinson. It was only when Draco and Hermione were bound, back to back, with tight silver rope, being led down a flight of eerie stairs by Parkinson, that he started getting worried.

* * *

_A/N: Dun dun dun! (Scary music, in case you didn't pick that up) Pansy's a jerk, but I thought she should have her fun. At least, until she gets her ass kicked. Look out for the ass-kicking next chapter! It'll be big fun, I promise!_

* * *


	13. Oh, Bugger

_Author's Note: Gosh. I'm sorry for the delay. I know, I know. It's been **years**, but I've had so much work this week. Forgive me. Please?_

_Also, a short warning... any of you out there who don't yet hate Pansy Parkinson, my apologies, but this chapter will hopefully fix that. She is a not-nice person. She deserves many bashings which a number of trusty fanfiction friends and I are going to administer to her. With a big stick. And possibly knuckledusters. _

* * *

_Chapter 13_

Oh, Bugger

Draco had been in a good many bad situations in his life, but he had to admit, being led at wand-point into a dungeon by his malicious ex-girlfriend had to be one of the worst.

"Where are you taking us, Parkinson?" growled Hermione.

"Not a peep from _you_," said Parkinson sweetly, prodding Hermione with her wand. Hermione let out a short cry, and Draco watched as a small circular welt appeared on her arm.

"Don't touch her," he spat.

"Okay!" said Pansy cheerfully. "I'll touch _you_!"

He braced himself for the pain that did not come. She touched him all right. She ran her finger down from the tip of his nose, over his cool lips, and down his chest. He squirmed with all of his might, and tried to kick her, and she just laughed. He was immediately sitting down, a hard wooden chair pressing against his back. She removed her finger though, which he supposed was something to be grateful for. Her very touch nauseated him.

"Drakey, Drakey, Drakey," said Pansy softly, sighing slightly. "When are you going to understand? You don't love her. It's me, remember? It's always been me. _You don't love her_." Her final four words were injected with liquid nitrogen. Draco winced, and tried to see the look on Hermione's face. It was no good. They were back to back, and he couldn't see her no matter how hard he twisted and turned.

He was interrupted in his attempts by a familiar tutting. "Uh uh, sweetie. Don't even think about it. We need to have a talk, and I don't want you influenced by _her_ Muggle mug. Haha, get it? Muggle mug? _Get it?_"

"Yes, Pansy, I get it," he said coldly. "Now, can I give you some advice? Fu-"

"_Draco!_" shrieked Pansy, interrupting what would have been a nice, colourful string of cursing. "Don't _swear_ at me!"

"I _didn't_," he snapped. "You interrupted me before I could tell you that you are a f-"

"Draco," she said, this time in a warning voice. "I mean it. _Don't._"

Draco glanced frantically around the dungeon. It didn't look familiar, just the normal, typical sort of thing you saw on Muggle movies. Dark bricks with the mortar rotting away, lanterns mounted on wall sockets every couple of feet – close enough to provide an image of the room, but far enough away that you couldn't tell if that thing you just trod on was a dead rat – and a few handcuffs chained to the wall. In the instant his eyes swept over that last bit, and he realised what it was used for, he decided to be civil, at least. It might get them both out of there with all limbs intact.

"Pansy," he said, struggling to keep his tone un-angry. "What do you want to talk about?"

She sighed, "You... me... us."

"So talk." He had to force the words from his far-from-willing mouth.

She laughed. It sounded like fingernails scraping on a blackboard. "Oh, I will, baby."

"But?" he prompted.

"But..." she said playfully, and then sprang at him. He couldn't help it. He shrieked. It made it that much easier for her to stick her tongue down his throat. He shrieked again, feeling her slimy muscle jiggling around like there was no tomorrow. There _was_ no tomorrow for her, in his opinion, because he planned to have _killed her by then!_

She took the vibrations that his throat was issuing – in an attempt to screech 'gerrof me, you-' and then a bad word – as enthusiasm, or at least consent. Draco assumed that was the way his mind was going, at least, judging by the way she had crawled on top of him. The worst thing was, he couldn't even kick her in the balls. Partly 'coz she had none – he hoped – but mostly because he was trussed up like a turkey.

"Pansy-" he tried to choke out, her tongue blocking the pathway of his words on their way out. So he did the only thing he could do. He bit down, really really hard.

She let out a mangled cry that was one long jumble of swear words. Draco tasted blood. It was yucky. He spat, and it somehow managed to fly across and hit Pansy in the face. What a strange coincidence!

"Twice in one day, Pansy?" he said innocently. "Boy, that's got to be tough."

"Be nice," she warned, but the words came out with a lisp due to her now-pierced tongue. Draco giggled. Pansy scowled. Draco clutched his leg, and Pansy tucked her wand back into her pocket with a satisfied grin.

"What do you want to talk about, Pansy?" he asked, clenching his jaw in case his brain had a spasm or something and decided to swear at her again.

"I would like..." she began, considering. He felt an overwhelming urge to kick her. It would be fun. "To know why you chose that _dog_ over me!"

Draco expected to feel Hermione tense at that, but she was still. He supposed that she was biding her time, keeping her mouth shut. So he defended her himself.

"Don't call her a dog," he warned. "I swear to Merlin, Pansy, I'll kill you."

"You would never do anything like that to _me_," she cooed. "You _love_ me."

As much as he was inclined to argue, he had a feeling Hermione might not benefit if he did. So he pressed his lips together very hard, and stared at the ground.

"See? You're trying to suppress your love for me now, aren't you?"

"Oh, of course," he deadpanned, unable to resist _one_ little jab at her self esteem. Problem was, her brain cell was too busy with normal human functions – breathing and whatnot – to register sarcasm. So she started gushing.

"I knew it! I told them all along!" she screeched. "You _do_ love me! You were just going to humiliate her... _right_?"

"Oh, of course," he repeated sarcastically.

You'd think he would have learnt his lesson by now, about Parkinson and her inability to interpret general human functions of speech, but his judgement was a little impaired by the realisation that was slowly dawning on him. Hermione wasn't moving. She hadn't moved for a fairly long time. And he'd just realised that, in the silence created by Pansy's drooling, he couldn't hear her breathe.

"Hermione?" he hissed urgently. "'Mione, speak to me, please? See, I even added a please. _I never say please_!"

He was actually freaking himself out, but that was nothing compared to what he felt when he twisted his head to try and look at her, and _her_ head, which had been leaning against his, lolled forward.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO HER?" he bellowed at Pansy, shooting her a glare that would make any self respecting slime ball curl up and die. Unfortunately, Pansy didn't.

She let out a simpering giggle, which reminded Draco unpleasantly of that toad whose arse he'd spent a good bit of his fifth year kissing. "Nothing," she said sweetly.

"Let her go," he begged, trying to wriggle his wrists out of their bonds. "You don't need her. You're bearing me a grudge for being a bitch to you, right? Take it out on me, Pansy. Please, just let her go."

"Wrong!" she sang. "I don't bear you a grudge," she said, approaching him seductively. "But I _hate_ her. So I'll let _you_ go. But not her."

"Okay!" he said obligingly, fairly sure that he could tackle her to the ground, perhaps accidentally kick her in the face or something – for once breaking his rule of not hitting girls - - but then again, Parkinson was more of a brainless amoeba, so perhaps he could make an exception – once he was free. Then he could help Hermione.

"Wait..." said Pansy slowly, leaning against the brick wall. "If _you're_ free, you'll try to help _her_."

"No, I won't," he said, swiftly lying through his teeth. He was extraordinarily good at it, the lying thing. He wasn't sure how, either, because such an angel as Draco would _never_ lie.

"You _will_," she insisted, a mutinous look appearing on her face. Draco observed, as he tilted into dreamless oblivion, that it looked rather like she had her face pressed up against some thick glass...

"Let him go!"

Draco awoke to a tone of pleading desperation in Hermione's voice which sent a warm, unpleasant chill down his spine.

"Now, why would I do that?" teased Parkinson. "That'd just spoil all of my _fun_, wouldn't it?"

"If by _fun_, you mean finishing what you started the other day, then I don't see why you need Draco to do it," said Hermione calmly. Draco marvelled at the fact that she could speak so coolly about her own _torture_.

"Don't you?" scoffed Pansy. "And they said you were _smart_."

Draco stayed very still with his eyes closed. He didn't want Parkinson to notice that her spell had lifted, because she would either recast it, or start _speaking_ to him.

He heard clipped footsteps, and a deep sigh from Hermione.

"Why don't you tell me why you need Draco, Pansy?" suggested Hermione levelly. "And then we can figure out if we can somehow get him out of the equation."

"I want him to _watch_, of course!" The shrill, cackling laughter reminded Draco of a Muggle movie he had seen once. Something about midgets with annoying voices and a girl with a yappy dog and a pair of damn sexy shoes and some old chick with some serious skin decolouration issues. Gizzard of Oz, perhaps? He couldn't quite remember much about it, except that the witch had given him nightmares for a week. Nothing on Pansy, of course, who had the ability to give him nightmares every time she spoke to him.

"No," said Hermione crisply. "I'll tell you what. Film it and send it to him later, if you like. Just let him _go_." The last word was said with an authority that chilled Draco. He was glad that _he_ wasn't the one wanting to torture Hermione and make himself watch it. Because... well, that would just be disturbing.

"Now, now, how would that be fun? But I'll give you a compromise-"

Draco never found out what that compromise was going to be – and he regretted it too, since he was _riveted_ on the evil cow's words – because a loud bang sent Pansy Parkinson flying backwards. Through the brick wall.

"_Harry_!" cried Hermione, coughing slightly as all of the dust from the demolished wall floated around her head in a little triumphant cloud.

Sure enough, Potthead himself emerged from the wreckage, his casually silhouette rubbing at his glasses as he yawned boredly.

"Hello, Hermione. Draco. Thought you might need some help."

There were a number of thoughts running through Draco's mind. First and foremost was the loud 'Yay! We're free! Parkinson's dead!' Somewhere above 'hungry...' and below 'wow, Hermione sounds hot' was something complimentary about Potter's rescuing them. At the back of his mind, niggling at his consciousness was a sarcastic little voice that sounded far too familiar, saying, 'great timing, dickhead. What, had to finish your manicure first?'

He promptly forgot that naughty thought when the tight bonds around him loosened and then disintegrated. He sprang to his feet, rubbing his wrists, and banged heads with Hermione, who was obviously coming to see if he was alright.

"_Ouch_!" they both yelled, Draco's exclamation significantly more high-pitched, as they sprang apart. Draco was now dealing with the task of attempting to rub two wrists and his head simultaneously. It wasn't working too well.

"Thank you, Harry," breathed Hermione, beaming at him. "You really saved the day."

She stepped on Draco's foot. Hard.

"_Ow! Hey!_ Oh, right. Yeah. Thanks, Pott- Harry."

"No problem," said Potter, not even having the decency to act modest. He just scratched his nose, and then remarked, "You know, I'm really hungry. Shall we get out of here?"

"No, you won't," croaked a vicious voice, as a grey Pansy Parkinson emerged from the cloud of dust. She was covered in the stuff. It was _funny_. What was not so funny, though, was that a great slimy ball of black curse had come barrelling out of her wand towards Potter, and what was even worse was that Hermione was, as if in slow motion, shoving Potter out of the way and taking his place in the firing line. When it sunk into her chest and she collapsed to the ground, turning a mottled grey colour, he felt his heart – not to mention all other organs – sink down into his shoes.

"'Mione!" yelled Harry, racing over to her.

Draco had other plans. He used a silent spell to summon his wand to him, and sent Pansy flying to the wall, which she crashed into with a sickening jolt, and hung suspended, as if she was glued there. _Draco_ knew that she was staying there because he was using his wand to slowly push her further into the wall, some sort of impromptu mild torture. He didn't plan to mention that he had high hopes of her bones eventually just giving up the fight and disintegrating.

"Don't you ever touch her," he spat, watching her face turn an interesting shade of purple as he altered his spell slightly.

"Dr-dra-" she began to choke out, but he shook his head disgustedly, and sent her skidding along the floor, where she came to a halt – with a little help from the wall.

Once he was satisfied that she was well and truly unconscious, he sprinted over to Hermione. Harry – Draco forgot to demote him to his surname in his worry for Hermione – was kneeling by her side, looking helpless for the first time Draco had ever seen.

Draco crouched beside her, fumbling to find her wrist. He was glad he'd half paid attention to some sort of lifesaving lecture he'd heard on the radio once. It enabled him to check her vitals, albeit clumsily. She had a pulse, at least.

He encircled her wrists with his larger hands, shaking them as he begged, "Please, talk. Breathe. Whatever. I'm not really fussy right now, so long as you're alive. I promise, if you'll just wake up right now, I will snog you for like, an hour. Why'd you have to be so noble? Come on, Hermione! You can't do this to me!"

"Let's get her to the hospital wing," said Harry, as he hauled Hermione to her feet.

Draco rolled his eyes quickly at this, and slung her over his shoulders. He tried not to jolt her too much as he raced up the stairs, to the main castle. Harry stopped abruptly, his ear cocked.

"_What_?" demanded Draco impatiently, more concerned with the life-or-death situation he had on his hands rather than the odd silence and lack of movement in the castle-

"_Oh_," he remarked.

They looked at each other once, and started running. Hermione was bouncing around like a sack of potatoes, but under the circumstances, Draco didn't think she'd mind. They raced to Dumbledore's office, where the gargoyles eyed them up coolly.

"What are you doing here?" demanded one.

"We need..." panted Draco. "Dumble...dore..."

"He isn't here," explained the other one.

"_What_?" bellowed Harry and Draco at the same time.

The gargoyles both lifted a gnarled finger and point to the stained glass window. Draco's face was almost pressed against it as he watched, down on the snow below, as Dumbledore stood at the fore of a triangle of teachers, wands at the ready as a mass of Death Eaters approached. Real ones, too, he realised.

"The castle is under attack," said one gargoyle, rather unnecessarily.

_Oh, bugger_, thought Draco.


	14. Cue the Battle Music

_Hello, guys! Yes, I have a new chapter for you. This weekend, I'm going to be busy for THE ENTIRE THING so it's pretty unlikely that I would have been able to update you. _

_This chapter is kind of confusing. There are a lot of loose ends, in this one AND the next one, which will be tied up later. If there's anything confusing/bugging you and you want a super special sneak peak, I would be happy to oblige if you'll just review/PM me. _

_So, here it is. Enjoy. _

* * *

_Chapter 14_

Cue the Battle Music

Draco rolled Hermione onto the platform, wedged between the gargoyles. "Look after her," he warned. "If they come... take her up to his office. Please, help her. We need to go."

One of them nudged Hermione's prostrate body with a dubious foot-claw as Draco and Harry started sprinting back in the direction of the Entrance Hall.

"Wait!" cried Hermione from behind them.

They both whipped around. Hermione was climbing to her feet, smoothing down her robes before she ran to catch them up. The gargoyles looked pleased with themselves.

Draco could only put his arm around Hermione as they ran, to show her how grateful he was that she wasn't, er... dead. Wands were coming out, just before they ran into a huddle of scared-looking students.

"What's going on?" demanded Ginny Weasley, not looking so scared any more.

"Fight... at castle," panted Harry. "Death Eaters..."

"We're coming with you," said Weasley the elder, pushing to the front of the group.

Draco didn't care. He kept running, not about to stop and be all noble and declaring that the young 'uns couldn't help. Truthfully, they needed all the help they could get.

The thumping of footsteps behind him showed that they had acquired a fairly super duper addition to their makeshift army. As Draco rushed into a new room, he was faced with what looked like the rest of Hogwarts. And he knew what to do.

They were being hit left and right with demands as to what was going on. Draco ignored the questions, and yelled, "Shut up! This is urgent, you _pricks_! We've got to fight. All of you, get your wands out. Half of you go right, half go left. The teachers are already in the middle. Now, _move_!"

With those words, and hearing hurried movement behind him, he ran out into the snow. Curses and hexes were flying left and right. He almost tripped over something, and cringed before he ran on, not wanting to stop and see who it was.

He felt Hermione's hand tighten on his, and knew she had seen it too. They hadn't had a chance to communicate – namely, for him to inform her that he was _very_ glad she wasn't dead. In fact, he was much more than glad. He was so relieved he could hardly form the words... it felt like the concrete he'd been wading through had just vanished. However, he didn't have time to try and express his feelings, what with the encroaching battle and all.

But later, he would definitely talk to her. _If they both made it out..._

It suddenly occurred Draco that he might die. More importantly... _Hermione_ might die. He wasn't too concerned about his _own_ life – although he had planned to go out in a slightly less horrible way. He understood, school solidarity, rah rah rah. But if _Hermione_ suffered, if, Merlin forbid, she _died_... well, then he knew he had a few choice suggestions of where to shove school solidarity.

He might make feeble, sarcastic jokes, but deep down he knew. _He could not let Hermione die_. Even if it meant sacrificing himself.

Hermione must have seen the steel which appeared in his eyes, because she tugged on his sleeve and gave him an inquisitive look, while sprinting still to the huddle of firing spells and people. He shook his head slightly, and sent a tricky little Dark curse that he'd learnt out of his wand. He wasn't going to muck around with _'Expelliarmus'_ and such. They were playing dirty, and so would he.

He glanced to the side, to see Hermione shooting a sharp looking sizzle of orange light at a Death Eater who had broken through the wall of teachers and students. The spell sliced straight into the Death Eater's chest, with a small sizzling noise, and he fell to the ground, gasping. Hermione hardly looked shaken as she ran past him and dived into the fray.

Draco swore, and dived in after her.

He was squeezing through a tightly packed bunch of people, taking careful aim at those white masks. Ahead of him, he could see a purple sock – _Hermione's _sock – disappearing around the collapsed body of a Death Eater.

He said a swear word, rather loudly, partly because he'd just been trodden on, partly because Hermione was just moving deeper into the knot of people with killing sticks, and partly because he was following her. Well, he couldn't very well run away, could he?

_Well..._ said a little voice in the back of his mind, before he slapped it in the back of the head with little thought hands.

He used his free hand – the one that wasn't shooting curses at everything in a mask – to pull himself forward. He figured that he ought to get to her fast, regardless of whichever short person he knocked down in the process. His Slytherin-ness wasn't _quite_ extinguished yet, although Merlin knew it had been getting that way with every blissful second he spent with Hermione.

Except for these past hundred and twenty or so, because he was in hell, despite her presence a foot or so in front of him.

Really, to anyone who didn't know any better – and Draco almost didn't – this _could_ be hell. Spires of flame curling towards the sky, which was grey with the smoke and the awful atmosphere, were at the same time making it a nice representation of Hades and making it as hot as hell, if you'll pardon the pun.

Draco was really quite surprised that he could afford to be arrogant and sarcastic, even when he was running and cursing for his life, and praying devoutly for Hermione's.

If someone had asked him which was more important... his answer would come easily. So easily, in fact, that he would scarcely have to think before the words poured from his mouth – more specifically, the words, 'Hermione, my love' – before he would bring a sharp, slicing edge of blue magic down on the head of the nearest Death Eater.

He had to be frank about this. He was well aware that, yes, he had killed people today. He, unlike the majority of the rest of the students fighting with them, knew a number of dangerous spells. He hadn't put the spell books in Lucius' secret library to waste, after all. But as long as it was for her... he couldn't be too harsh with himself. Perhaps after, when this was all over – if it ever ended, for him – he would regret his actions. But now... he had to make sure that this battle would have an end for Hermione.

"Draco!" he heard, a female voice screaming out his name.

He, even with the green light shooting towards his chest, could instantly identify it as Hermione's voice, and he said a silent, hasty thankyou in his head that she had made it this far. Whether or not _he_ would, however, was a matter that he didn't have the time to consider.

* * *

_Please, don't kill me._

_Okay, now that that's out of the way... I've already written the next few chapters, which pretty much make up the rest of the story. This was an especially short one, sorry, but I thought it was appropriate to chop it off where I did. The reason I'm not posting them at the same time is because I wanna hear feedback on this bit, people! Tell me what you liked/didn't like/think is going to happen. All feedback will be LOVED._


	15. The Aftermath

_Okay, I've just gotta reiterate here. Don't. Kill. Me._

_Please. I would really not be happy with you if you did. Also, not happy with all the death threats I received in the twenty-four hours or so since I posted. Lol, thanks guys. Kidding. All feedback is wonderful, even when you're thinking about how to kill me for my latest Draco-related misdemeanor._

_You will understand everything later. I promise. But if I'm either sucky at explaining stuff, or you're just dumb (I'm sorry, I'm kidding. None of you are dumb), feel free to utilise the PM thing I mentioned in the last update._

_This is pretty much the third-last chapter, I think. Maybe fourth. I've got the next one written, and I'm not sure whether to skip to the epilogue or not. But whatever. Once my brain starts working again, I'll let you know._

_Have fun!_

* * *

_Chapter 15_

The Aftermath

His eyes felt like they were caked together. As he forced them open, he realised that they probably _had_ been. They hurt like hell, too, but that was the least of his problems.

It was hot, very hot. His back was getting a nice toasting, and the front was being seared off by a wave of flame that he thought he felt.

'_Is this hell?'_ he wondered vaguely. '_Seems rather a let down. I mean, come _on_. No Satan come to welcome me, flaming pitchfork and all? No evil looking sexy devils in tight red leather?'_

He reprimanded himself. '_You've got Hermione, remember?'_

Then he remembered. _Hermione._

If this was hell, then he was dead. Well, obviously. But he didn't want to be dead. Not without her.

What the hell – he was really getting into the 'hell' puns – was he thinking? She couldn't be dead. He forbade it. And even if she was... would she be in hell? Her, the one with the most brilliant, caring personality, who would even deign to help a _Slytherin_ and pretend to _date_ him... she could never commit such a sin as would book her into a first class stay at Los Hellos.

Draco was pretty sure it wasn't _just_ his little killing spree of a few minutes – or so it seemed – ago that had gotten him here.

Wherever _here_ actually was. He still hadn't established that, what with the lack of helpful devils in sexy red leather...

He took a step forward. It really, really hurt.

He took a step backwards, just to check. Yep, it really, really hurt regardless of direction.

"Er... hello?" he called out hesitantly, before his stomach sank, his knees gave out, and he spun into a whirlpool of dizzying oblivion.

"_No!_"

There was a loud scream, filled with so much fury and misery that he could hardly stand to hear it. It transposed into choking, gasping sobs, and he felt pressure on his chest. It was warm, and suddenly he realised that the hell fire and brimstone was gone. He just felt hungry.

"D-Draco," said the crying voice, which wasn't at all unpleasant, except that it sounded kind of croaky.

"Mmm?" he responded, realising that he was lying on the ground, and doing his best to make amends for that by getting off his arse. Bit hard, though, with the pressure on his chest.

"Draco!"

Suddenly, he was being squished in a bone crushing hug, courtesy of, of course, Hermione.

"Huh," he remarked. "I suppose I'm not dead, then?"

"Not dead..." confirmed Hermione, her voice muffled from where her face was pressed into his shoulder. "You, Draco, are very much alive."

"So, would it be a stupid question to ask what happened?" he asked, quite sure that it _would_ be, but not really concerned with it at that point of time, with Hermione pressed up against him and all thoughts of devils in tight leather vanished from his head.

"Yes," she exclaimed, her voice coming out funny. He suspected that it might be the crying doing that, because his shoulder didn't have such amazing voice-funny-sounding-making powers.

He stood up properly, pulling Hermione with him. His eyes – caked with whatever strange burning glue that was – had to blink a few times to adjust to the light before he recognised his surroundings. He was at the place of the battle, surrounded by collapsed bodies. He winced, and drew Hermione closer to him. She was alive. He was alive. They had both survived this horrible time, and it was over.

The previously roaring fires were now just thin wisps of black smoke, floating up as the last remnants of the flames disappeared. The gray of the sky was fading back into a clear blue, and the acrid odour of spells was slowly disappearing. All seemed calm, except for the bodies littering the ground. It wasn't like there were so many that there wasn't any room to step, but there were more than enough. More of the black-cloaked, masked ones, which was surprising. Draco tried not to shudder at the cold, logical way he was sorting the bodies.

He tucked Hermione under his arm, somehow wanting to protect her from this horrible sight, and shuffled her inside. There was a trickle of tired students and teachers climbing the steps, the last of a stampede, he assumed. Hermione was talking too slowly for his liking, so – although he was still dizzy from his little experience – he lifted her over his shoulder and dashed her up the stairs.

"_Draco_!" she scolded. "Put... me... down! I can walk, you know."

"No, you can't."

She complained into the fabric on his back, in a string of soft core swear words under her breath that he wasn't sure were intended for his ears. However, being particularly talented and all, he picked up each and every one.

"You're bleeding. You need to get to the hospital wing." He was astounded at the high level of his own firm reasoning. Seemed like crystal clear logic, in his eyes.

"The hospital wing has far worse injuries to deal with," she said grimly into his scapula.

Obligingly, he spotted an open door and steered her through it. After landing – with, of course, no input from Draco... erm, of course – with a _thud_ on the hard desk, she sighed, and started fiddling with the edge of her sweater.

Draco knew was this meant. Even when he had hated her – a dark time which he didn't like talking about – he had noticed that she always seemed to do that when she was upset. It didn't take a genius, although Draco was quite aware of his intellectuality, to – even without the fiddling – figure out that something was bothering her.

Obviously, the battle had taken a toll of her. He didn't know yet who was alive, who hadn't made it... Actually, now that it occurred to him, he felt bad for leaving the battle site like this. But all he had been thinking about was keeping her safe.

He concentrated on her face a little harder. Her lips were pressed in a hard line, and going white from the pressure. Her eyes were steeled, and her neck muscle was tensed.

"What's wrong?" he asked immediately.

It was more than this. He had seen her after things like this before, and she had looked brave. Now, she just looked upset.

She whispered something under her breath, something incomprehensible. He leant forward, straining to listen. She repeated it, louder this time but still indecipherable.

"I'm scared, Draco," she said finally.

"Of what?" he asked, surprised. "It's over, remember?"

She was on her feet in a moment, pacing around furiously. "You were so close to death, and I could feel something in my chest tearing in two! I could see the shock on your face, as you saw the curse and realised you were about to die! And I couldn't believe it. I couldn't _take_ it!"

As horrible and sad as this was, it was rather gratifying that she was describing her heart breaking to him.

He held out a hand. She hesitantly placed hers in it, and he enclosed his fingers around hers and pulled her to him. A second later, her head was buried in his chest, and he could feel her tears soaking through his shirt.

"You could have died," she sobbed. "It was so close!"

Sensing that this was _not_ the time to be panting after the gory details, he kept his mouth shut. His hands, freezing as they were, seemed to be having a calming effect on Hermione as he stroked her cheek.

"Come on," he said suddenly. "We need to get you... fed, or something."

They ventured out into the Great Hall, fingers tightly entwined. Well, it wasn't like Hermione had a choice in the matter. Draco had come so close to losing her that he wasn't going to risk it again.

There were people everywhere, running back and forth with blankets and medical supplies and yelling frantic directions. If not for the lack of smoke and scary people in Death Eater masks, he would have thought there was another battle going on. Spells were still flying, although these ones had the warm glow of healing spells, doing their best to fix the injuries of those who had fought.

Neville Longbottom was clutching at the same wrist that had broken in their first year, but was pressing himself against the wall to let the more-severely injured through first. Quite noble, that boy, thought Draco fleetingly as he pushed Hermione through the crowd.

He caught a glimpse of Potter and Weasley. Typical, that they'd get out of this alive. They always seemed to. Hermione gave a relieved exhalation. They were carrying a small body: Potter had the arms, Weasley had the legs. They both looked exhausted. Hermione cringed away, and Draco tried not to look at whoever it was that they were carrying.

An arm brushed past him, and he glanced around, eager to identify another survivor. It was Cho Chang, arms clasped around the Edgecombe girl's neck as she was carried away by a tall Hufflepuff. She was crying, and for once, he didn't blame her.

Crabbe was supporting Goyle, who had a leg that was facing the wrong way around. He gave them a weak smile as they went past, but Crabbe seemed to be concentrating, and Goyle seemed to be in pain.

Hermione was darting around, casting spells and soothing people. Every now and again she would race back to Draco, whisper a word or two of acknowledgement or encouragement, before rushing off again.

A Slytherin boy limped past, hand comfortingly on the shoulder of one of the Creevey boys.

"Draco!" exclaimed a Ravenclaw girl he recognised from a Care of Magical Creatures class. "Have you seen Adam Stevens?"

He pointed after the limping boy, and she raced off after him. He watched as they embraced gratefully, and Creevey Junior buzzed off happily to help someone else.

_Wow,_ thought Draco. _They're really getting into the inter-house spirit, aren't they?_

They were, and he was glad. Everywhere he turned, Slytherins would be mingling, and people wouldn't give a damn.

Zacharias Smith didn't even have his nose turned up as he ushered a little Slytherin girl towards Madam Pomfrey, who was sitting in the centre of the room as everybody converged upon her.

Professor Snape strode through the crowd, spells flying from his wand as he healed like a million kids at a time. All of the teachers, actually, were weaving through the crowd, doing their best to help and heal, despite their own battle wounds. That is, the ones who had made it at all.

Blaise slipped through the crowd, his arm around Kim. He had a bandage around his upper arm, through which blood was still seeping. Kim was tending to it as best she could, with crooked fingers and blood trickling from a slash in her neck, which he was trying to put pressure upon at the same time.

A Ravenclaw Prefect walked wearily past, arms heaped with blankets. Hermione gave him a look which said that she would be safe, before she rushed off, helping at the same time as she pelted out questions like bullets. The Prefect looked bewildered, and rightly so.

"Blaise, Kim," said Draco, without removing his eyes from Hermione. "Are you okay?"

"We're fine," they both said simultaneously. Kim added, "But what about you, after that thing with Hermione?"

"What thing with Hermione?" he asked suspiciously.

They exchanged a glance. Draco shivered. It was spooky, how in-tune those two were.

Blaise leaned forward. "You know, how she saved your life and all?"

"She... _what_?"

Draco was confused.

"Oh!" exclaimed Kim, slapping Blaise gently on his good arm. "Of course he doesn't understand... didn't the spell knock him out?"

"I don't know," admitted Blaise. "I had to take on Lucius pretty much immediately after."

Draco barely had time to process his comment before he demanded, "What happened? When the spell hit me? I've been wondering, but I didn't want to ask Hermione."

"It _didn't_ hit you," provided Blaise. "But it was by the skin of your teeth that it didn't. Mark my words, boy, you're lucky to be alive."

"She shot out a shield spell," added Kim. "Strong enough to knock you out. Everyone thought it was too late... that you were dead."

"She saved me," he murmured, trying to get it through his head. It hadn't been a strange turn of fate that had almost made him the next Harry Potter. It was Hermione, all her. She had saved him.

He wordlessly wove through the people, his eyes settling on Hermione. She had stopped and taken the time to heal a first year's graze with her wand, before sending him on his way with a gentle smile. He sighed slightly, marvelling at her, before he grabbed her hand and pulled her to a staircase.

Ignoring her protests, he led her up to the roof. Up there... it was quiet. Serene. Peaceful, even. He pulled her close to his chest and buried his face in her hair.

She tentatively placed her arms around his neck, obviously unsure of his sudden sentimentality. Even he had to admit, it was more than a tad out of character for him. Sure was unexpected, too.

"You amaze me," he whispered, possibly the first romantic thing he'd said to her since he'd admitted his feelings.

She was surprised. He could tell. She raised an eyebrow at him, and asked, "How come? I mean, thanks, but any particular reason?"

"Well, you saved me, silly girl," he reasoned. Lowering his voice, he added, "Not just today, either."

He wasn't lying, either. He was telling the truth, the absolute truth. He hadn't told the truth properly – not like this, pouring out his heart and soul – in a very long time. Well, forever, really.

If not for Hermione, and her influence on him, he could be dead by now, in a multitude of ways. He might have been suffocated by Pansy Parkinson's bosom. He might have accidentally gotten in the way of one of his father's experimental spells, or he might have not-so-accidentally taken to the Muggle form of relieving problems and done something unspeakable with a full bottle of prescription drugs and vodka.

Or he could be going to the dark side, well on his way to becoming one of those men who got into schools – he still had yet to figure out how they had done that – and killed innocent children. He could be on the path to becoming his father, a fate he wished upon nobody. But now, he was just _Draco_.

"What are you talking ab-" began Hermione, before he crashed his lips against hers.

She responded immediately, of course. Even with his little bout of soppiness, he still found it in him to wrench out an arrogant thought about his amazing kissing skills.

"You _dazzle_ me," admitted Hermione. "Really. It's like I can't think right whenever you look at me."

He looked at her, focusing rather hard. He liked the way she gave in and kissed him when he did that. Perhaps it would have been more fun if Hermione had been a dumb bimbo who couldn't think.

_No_, he decided. His_ Hermione was far preferable._

And she _was_ his, and they were together. Despite the dead bodies below, and the injured and the hurting and the mourning in the castle... well, all they could do was grasp at the faint straws of hope.

* * *

_Sweet, hein? Warning for the faint-hearted: there's one more twist. It's a pretty crappy one, and I know for a fact that a few of you have guessed it, but hey, what can I say? I'm idea-lacking._

_But, as always, feedback will make you my favouritest people ever! Assuming there's more than one of you! Stopping now, 'coz I'm just embarrassing myself!_


	16. Maelstrom

_Hello! This is it! The one you've all been waiting for... uh, not really. I'm going to get right into it this time, and not bore you with heaps of author-note-ness. Heheh, that comes later. _

_Oh, and this one has a language warning, okay? Just beware. If you're underage or whatever, cover your eyes!_

* * *

_Chapter 16_

Maelstrom

Draco was kind of half-cradling Hermione, half-making out with her. They were getting kind of frantic now, finally understanding how close they had just been to losing one another. He couldn't guarantee that clothes would have stayed on, if Hermione hadn't opened her eyes and gasped.

"Touching," sneered a cold voice. His father's voice. "But perhaps you should focus on what is at hand, yes?"

Lucius was standing there, lazily pointing a wand at Draco. He wasn't alone, either. Pansy Parkinson was there, glaring at Hermione as she trained her wand upon Hermione's jugular.

"Oh _jeez_!" exclaimed Draco. "You've got, like, nine lives or something! You're freakin' creepy, man!"

"Now isn't time to be making jokes at the expense of the girl whose wand is capable of killing your little girlfriend," stated Lucius mockingly.

"What the hell are you doing here?" spat Draco, aiming this one at his father. He didn't care about Pansy's crazy come-back-to-life-ness. He could worry about that when there wasn't a Death Eater getting ready to kill Hermione. "If you want Hermione, too bad. I'm not letting you hurt her."

"Oh, I don't want to kill _her_. Well, it's not my first priority, at least. I want to kill _you_."

His cold manner of stating that he intended to put an end to the life of his own flesh and blood sent a chill down his spine. Obviously, it didn't do great for Hermione, either, because she whimpered.

"Ooh, ooh! Lucius, can I have _her_?" begged Pansy, waving her wand around carelessly.

_It would be so easy, to push her..._ But Hermione would die, and possibly himself as well, and he didn't want that happening.

"Why?" he asked, forcing the words out.

"Because you are a traitor," retorted his father. "Need I say more?"

"No need to list my failures," said Draco coldly. "I understand, I haven't lived up to your bastard code. What, didn't kill enough _Mudbloods_ today? I'm sorry I disappointed you, _Daddy_."

Hermione flinched at his use of the word 'mudblood', until she realised that he was mocking his father, who was getting paler as his fury increased.

"That wasn't smart, Draco," he said. "You should be begging, not cracking jokes."

"It wasn't a joke," Draco informed him. "You really _are_ a bastard."

Everything happened quickly. His father lunged, sending a sizzling spell sweeping at Draco, which would have beheaded him – even more painfully than if he'd been beheaded normally – if he hadn't of ducked just in time. Pansy clapped her hand to her mouth, gasping indignantly, which made her sleeve fall down to reveal an ugly-looking tattoo on her wrist. Hermione said, "Oh!" in a little gasp as several things fell into place for her, and Draco, comprehending her little gasp of realisation, figured it all out.

Pansy had become a Death Eater, and it had been _Pansy_ who had figured out how to get the Death Eaters into the castle. She'd probably worked herself out of the wreckage in the dungeons with a nifty little spell she'd have learnt at the Death Eater meetings. So, it was all her fault. She had been pissed off at him for not liking her, and for dating Hermione, and so she'd caused _this_.

Of course, it wasn't like she'd stood up and said, 'Hey! Let's attack Hogwarts!' and Voldemort had just been like, 'Hmm, okay, go for your life. Sacrifice a couple dozen of my favouritest Death Eaters whilst trying to win over the boy you have a crush on.' Pansy had probably walked into what was already a plan, and sped it up. She was the catalyst, to the event which had cost so many lives, and had hurt Hermione.

For that, well... she couldn't get away with it, could she?

In the nanosecond or so that it took for Draco to begin considering which spell to use to curse Pansy to a bloody, limbless oblivion – grumpy Lucius or no – Hermione sent a burst of bright light issuing from the tip of her wand, and swirling towards Pansy Parkinson's head. Draco squinted – pointedly not doing anything to help out – and realised that the bright light was actually a whole bunch of little sparks close together. They looked like they'd hurt, and he had a fairly decent idea that that was the general aim.

It was like everything was in slow motion, as Lucius sent a Shield Charm towards the sparks, heading it off an inch or so from Pansy's forehead. The two of them turned to face Hermione. Lucius looked irritable, and a tad bored as he flicked a red curse out of his wand. Pansy glared at Hermione balefully before hurling a great sweeping ribbon of orange magic at Hermione. Draco watched, horrified, as Hermione deflected the magic before they were halfway to her, and sent Lucius' spell at Pansy and vice versa. This was quite tricky of her, realised Draco proudly, because the spells would have disobeyed Hermione if they'd been sent back to, quite literally, meet their makers.

Draco jumped in, sending a hissing stream of cold at Pansy, immobilising her enough to get her out of the way. He was preparing to further incapacitate her, and then to take care of Lucius, but when he looked up after binding Parkinson's limbs together with a rope niftily conjured from his wand, he realised that there was no need. Hermione was already on him, and they were circling slowly; Lucius because he wanted to look threatening and professional, Hermione because she was slowly getting closer to catch him off guard.

And then, with a bang, it started. Concentration was clouding both of their eyes, and Draco realised that Lucius had met his match in a sixteen year old girl, and wasn't too happy about it. Spells were flying at such a speed that it was almost like the battlefield again, except that this was so much stranger.

He watched as this transaction happened at super speed, hardly able to comprehend the reflexes which Hermione and Lucius utilised as they engaged in a furious battle of wordless spell casting.

"You, Granger," yelled Lucius over the sounds made by their spells, "are a gold digging bitch! You do not deserve my son- _ouch! That hurt, you bitch!_"

Hermione was got him in the gut while he was talking. Draco was glad.

"And _you_, Malfoy, are a self-centred, arrogant prick!" Hermione just about screamed. "You don't give a _shit_ about anyone but yourself, least of all your son, so don't you _dare_ get all high and mighty and pretend that you know him!"

He whipped her feet out from under her, and she thudded to the ground before jumping back to her feet and sending a furious curse at him.

"I know my son, far better than _you_ proclaim to! I know that he is a _Malfoy_, and would never accede to _loving_ something like _you_ unless he had a motive!"

"No, Lucius, that's _you_! You're obviously unaware of this, but Draco is a _good person_, which is more than anyone could say for you."

"He doesn't love you, Mudblood whore," spat Lucius, as a string of curses so speedy erupted from his wand and flew towards Hermione.

Well, that did it. All at once, Hermione, taken aback by a combination of his words, the speed at which his spells were coming at her, and the realisation that he might be right, stumbled a little. Draco, snapping into action and realising that he was an accomplished wizard as well, abandoned Pansy and jammed his wand into the gap under Lucius' jaw. He'd gotten close enough, during his father's little tirade.

"That was a mistake," he hissed, poking his wand just that little bit harder. "You _don't_ know me. Hermione does, and she knows full well that I love her. You, on the other hand, are everything she said and more. Why the hell did you even procreate? You should have known that anything descended from you would either be retarded or end up hating you. Luckily, I am the _latter_. So, Lucius, I'd just like to make this clear-" Hermione Disarmed him, and Lucius' wand flew into her hand, "-You are scum. Coming into this school and hurting innocent people is just the icing on the cake. _Fuck you, _Dad."

Lucius was desperate. Draco could see it in his eyes, and in that moment, he didn't give a shit. He _hated_ his father, with more fervour than he'd ever thought possible. He watched defeat dawn behind those pale irises, and smirked a little. He had won. Hermione was safe.

Rather than defeat, a new emotion shone from his father's eyes as he ran at Draco. Hatred, blind and utter hatred, along with a spark of rejection and acceptance that glimmered at the last moment. Draco was close enough that he could examine his father's eyes properly, before he threw himself to the side. Lucius flailed, and spat at Draco before he lost his battle with gravity and fell, plummeting towards the ground.

Hermione gave a gasp, and raced to the side. They both looked over the balustrade, hands instinctively clasped, as they glimpsed the dark huddle on the ground, far below, that was Lucius. There hadn't been time to stop him, to save him, even if they had used magic. Of course, Draco could have saved him by staying in his way, and being knocked over the edge himself. Somehow, he didn't think this would be counted in his tally of bad things. It had been survival of the fittest, eat or be eaten. He had scarcely had a choice, in the haste of the moment, and he hadn't been able to sacrifice _himself_ for the man who had tried to kill him and his beautiful girlfriend multiple times over the past ten minutes.

Yet, he couldn't help but feel a pang as he tried to envision retelling the story to his mother, explaining what had happened.

"Are you okay?" he asked Hermione in a low voice.

"Of course," she assured him, giving his hand a firm squeeze as she steered him away from the view he couldn't take his eyes off. "What about you?"

"Surprisingly, I'm fine," he said, and for once, he was telling the absolute truth.

"Good," she said softly, and Draco hoped that she would kiss him. Instead, she jerked her head at Pansy, who was glaring at them from the floor, and asked, "What are we going to do about _her_?"

Draco had a lovely little daydream about levitating her off the ground, and sending her over the edge, but regretfully, realised that Hermione probably wouldn't be too keen about that idea.

"You don't think we could..." she began, her eyes drifting meaningfully towards the railing before she cut herself off. "Sorry. Of course we can't."

Draco smirked a little, and shrugged. "I've no idea. Perhaps we ought to take her downstairs."

"Yes. But first..." Hermione removed Pansy's wand and snapped it in half before tossing both pieces over the edge. She then removed her bonds. "I need to have a chat to her."

"Okay!" Draco sat eagerly on a bench by the door to the roof, while Pansy stood up, giving Hermione what was obviously the filthiest look she could summon up. Pretty pathetic effort, too. Draco could see that she was just _itching_ to pout.

Hermione glanced over at Draco, who was wondering if he could summon some popcorn, and shook her head. "_Alone_," she stressed, pointing at the door.

Draco folded his arms. "I don't think so. I'm not going to miss out on the biggest bitch fight of the century."

She wordlessly pointed at the door, which conveniently swung open with a little prompting from her wand.

"Aw, but _Mum_-" he whined, sulkily stomping over to the door – all in the name of his sulky kid performance, of course. Well, mostly, anyway.

"Thanks," she called through the door.

He sat down against it and focused his listening skills. Hermione hadn't bothered to silence the roof, so he had to assume that she just didn't want him to see what she was doing. Of course, once he figured that out, he wanted to see all the more. Perhaps she was going to torture her. Ooh! Perhaps she was going to get naked!

Once he thought about that for a second, he realised that it actually wasn't likely at all. So he contended himself with pressing his ear up to the door and listening really hard.

"-you comprehend that you didn't have to imperil the others, you vacuous cow?" Hermione could be heard saying.

Draco blinked. Wow. Big words.

"If you wanted to get back at Draco or I, you could have. You didn't have to wage a full on war on Hogwarts to do it."

"Yeah, but... but-" spat Pansy.

Wow, verbose.

"But I bet you feel _real_ great now, knowing that there was a fight 'coz of _you_!"

"No, Pansy," said Hermione calmly. "It was because of _you_. Because your little jealousy problem got way out of hand, and you became willing to kill people – your _friends_, even – in order to revenge yourself upon us."

"You don't get it," snapped Pansy. "I've liked him for _years_."

"Yeah, great reason to spark a feud that ended in dozens of people _dying_," said Hermione sarcastically. Draco could, by now, distinguish the underlying tone in her voice that showed that she _really_ wanted to hit Pansy.

"_You fucking bitch_!" screamed Parkinson. The transition between pathos and fury was unperceivable. "You've no right to get all princely with me! You would have done the same thing, in my situations, and I _won't_ have you judging me! Because you know what? He may love you _now_, but just wait! He'll be mine, eventually!"

"Perhaps you should leave that up to him," said Hermione coldly.

_You go, girlfriend!_ thought Draco, only a little sarcastically.

"He may have changed _now_, but just you wait. Mark my words, before long, he'll be back to sleeping with a new girl every night, and you'll be sitting on the sidelines, wondering what went wrong!" bellowed Pansy.

"H-He _what_?"

Hermione was shaken. Draco froze, realising that she _believed_ Pansy.

"That's right," said Pansy spitefully. "You heard me. Don't pretend you haven't heard the rumours."

"Draco wouldn't... he can't have..."

When Draco tried to turn the handle, he found that it was locked.

"Alohomora," he hissed, jabbing his wand at it.

It gave a pathetic blue glow, before fading and remaining well and truly locked.

_Shit! Why does she have to be such a good witch?_

He rattled the handle a few times, in vain, it seemed. Hermione was obviously too caught up in Pansy's words to hear, and Pansy, if she had heard, was probably just too much of a bitch.

"You just don't get it," continued Pansy. "Draco doesn't love you. He doesn't give a shit about you. In fact, just the other day he was laughing about it in the common room. About how you believed it all. It was a game to him."

"No, it wasn't!" yelled Draco, pounding on the door.

Hermione didn't reply.

"He still loves me," said Pansy triumphantly. "He wanted to get you to love him, to prove that little miss Granger wasn't so cold after all. And he triumphed, and soon enough, he'll come back to me. You were just a plaything to him."

"No, I wasn't," said Hermione pathetically.

_Good to see she's fighting back_, he thought sarcastically.

"He loves me," said Pansy confidently. "I know it."

Draco had a marvellous idea, and began to apply his wonderfully toned shoulder to the door. The wood shuddered slightly, and he suspected that he had done something not-fun to it in the process of running against the door on purpose. Looking back in retrospect, he realised that perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea after all.

He remembered that, while ineffective in the whole unlocking thing, his wand still _worked_, and so busted a great bloody hole in the door with it. He climbed out, dusting splinters of wood off his clothes.

"Hermione," he said immediately. "Don't believe a word. It isn't true."

She wasn't looking at him, and he was pretty sure it was on purpose. He had no idea how she could believe a word that came from Parkinson's mouth, but she'd had a long day. It was understandable that she'd be a little stupid at the end of it. His job, then, was to convince her that he _did_ love her, that Parkinson was so full of shit that she ought to be lit on fire and chucked on somebody's doorstep.

"I'm right, aren't I, Drakey?" said Pansy, shooting him a knowing grin.

"No!" he exclaimed, horrified. "How could you even _think_ that? You freak me out. As a matter of fact, you really disgust me as well."

Pansy turned to Hermione, and assured her, "He doesn't mean that."

"Oh yes I do," he grumbled. "Look, Parkinson, listen good because I'm not in the mood for repeating and such. _You_ are a loser. Let's just list the things you've done recently to make me hate you, m'kay? You ambush and curse the girl I love, resulting in an extended stay in the hospital wing for her. You come back to Hogwarts after a heavenly suspension, and you _kidnap_ Hermione and I, knock her out, piss me off, come back from the dead a couple of times, become a Death Eater, let a bunch of fellow evils into the castle which led to a fight which led to death which, for the record, _you_ are responsible for, and then you team up with my father to kill us, and now you're lying to the girl I love!"

"Jeez, take a breath," said Hermione sarcastically. She was obviously still sore about Pansy's comment despite the facts that, A: the aforementioned comments were absolute bullshit, and B: he had, in the past minute of ranting, declared his love for her like three times.

"I didn't _lie_!" said Pansy indignantly.

"Did too," he retorted. "Telling her that I sleep with a new girl each week? That I was bitching about her in the common room? That I don't love her?"

"Two words," said Pansy triumphantly. "_Bridget Barker_."

Well, he had to admit, that stung a little. Bridget had been a Slytherin girl who Draco had dated for a while after he'd dumped Pansy for a while. She'd been a nice girl, too, until she'd cheated on him with Zacharias Smith. But just because _she_ was a slut didn't mean _he_ was for dating her. He'd never slept with her, either.

"Draco!" Hermione exclaimed, sounding well and truly hurt now. She obviously thought that Pansy was telling the truth, and the fact that he had winced at the mention of Bridget's name, and the fact that he wasn't exactly denying it, was proof. Actually, now that he thought about it, her suspicions weren't actually that unreasonable. Or, they wouldn't have been, if he hadn't of been telling her the opposite ever since he got back onto the roof.

"She's _lying_!" he yelled, and turned back to Pansy without altering his volume. However, he inflected his voice with a touch of hatred. "Okay, how about we forget that one for the time being, and concentrate on the _war_ you just caused!"

"None of that matters," said Pansy carelessly. "Because you still love me, remember? Doesn't love conquer all evils, or whatever?"

"_I don't love you_."

"Wh-what?"

Finally, his words had sunk through her thick head.

Her bottom lip trembled, her eyes darted all over the place. She was freaked out, and Draco was loving it.

"Y-you don't love me?" she asked, obviously struggling to comprehend the vaguest possibility of such a heinous thing. Draco sort of understood her difficulty, what with only having two brain cells and all.

"Finally," he muttered, and then added, a little louder, "No, I don't love you."

"Not even a little bit?"

"Not even at all," he confirmed.

"_How could you do this to me?_" she wailed.

"Do what to you?" he yelled back. "I never did anything! _You _were the one always deluding yourself! I have _never_ loved you, but you don't believe me when I tell you, do you? Merlin knows I've tried!"

"Draco," said Hermione in a low voice, warningly. She didn't sound like she wanted to kill him, but she didn't sound happy with him either. He wondered why she was saying his name like that.

"I've never done anything to you," whimpered Pansy Parkinson.

"Except for living, of course," added Draco helpfully.

"_Draco_," said Hermione, more forcefully this time.

"I've never hurt you-"

"On purpose, that is," he contributed.

"Draco!"

"I've always been there for you, waiting in the wings until you realised that you loved me."

"Pity, isn't it? I'm sorry you wasted your time."

"_Draco!_" screamed Hermione, her eyes fearfully trained upon Pansy, who was making her shaky way onto the railing.

"_I'm not going to be there anymore, Draco! I'm sick of it! I'm sick of _life_! So, that's it! Goodbye, Draco! I hope this is on your conscience for the rest of your life!_"

Draco's eyes widened as he realised what she was going to do. "Pansy, no!" he yelled, but it was too late.

She jumped.

For the _second_ time today, Hermione and Draco were hanging over the railing, staring down as her cloak billowed out around her, before she came to a halt on the ground. Lucius was sprawled a few yards away from her, and they were both motionless.

"Oh, God," whimpered Hermione. "Oh, God, oh God."

Draco was silent. He didn't think he could find any words to describe how he felt right now, and if he assumed correctly, he'd probably get his head bitten off if he _tried_.

"Oh God. We've killed Pansy Parkinson." Hermione was frantic, pacing around and muttering to herself.

He grabbed her wrists on the way past and pulled her to him. "Relax," he told her, curling an arm around her neck and using it to manoeuvre her into her chest.

"_No_." She ripped away from him, and the sudden lack of pressure against him almost stung. The air was getting cold up there on the roof. Night had fallen long before. He didn't want to imagine how cold Hermione must be, with her sweater all ripped from the battle.

She shot him a look that made him realise that, not only had she believed every word that had poured from Pansy Parkinson's slimy mouth, but she hated him for it. When she turned on her heel and stormed off, his suspicions were just magnified.

"Hermione!" he called after her.

No response. _Excellent._

With a stern reprimand to his brain – _'Again with the sarcasm, Draco! This is _not_ the time!'_ – he took off down the stairs after her. Pansy, his father... the thoughts about their deaths that were plaguing the back of his mind vanished, and he was solely concerned with finding Hermione, and getting her back to him.

* * *

_Woot! Longest chapter I've ever written, I think. Well, I hope you enjoyed that, kiddies. Especially the multitudes of you who have been waiting for this moment (Pansy's revenge) for a _lo-ong _time. Bluespotteddog, I'm lookin' at you. Sorry. I wanted to have some blood and guts and dismembered limbs in there, but I didn't know how I could stick that in without involving an Azkaban sentence for either Draco or Hermione. _

_Okay, Draco's emotional issues'll be covered in the next chapter. You know, why he doesn't give a rat's arse that his father's just up and kicked the bucket. Hermione will help him out, play psychiatrist and such. As Draco would say, "Kinky..."_

_In the feedback which I hope to be receiving (blatant hinting, much?), please let me know if you'd rather I hold off the last two chapters for a few days each, to prolong the end as long as possible, or still post at this rate. Seriously, I don't mind. I'm as reluctant to let them go as (I hope) you guys are._

_And, also, sorry to finish the chapter on the not-so-happy note. I thought I'd better chuck in that last twist. So, one more to go, along with the epilogue. Feedback, please!_


	17. Everybody was KungFu Fighting

_Okay, let's just get something clear here... am I the _only_ one who has the inability to look at the title chapter without starting to sing?_

_Gosh, I hope not._

_So, welcome to the official second last chapter of this story. Sad? I am._

_Just the epilogue after this, but it's gonna be especially long, just for you kids, m'kay? And I mean _seriously_ long. So far, it's like 7000 words, ironically more than this entire story was originally meant to be._

_I thought I ought to get the random rambling outta the way in this one. I've been asked to write a sequel by a few people. Would you all mind overly if I forced you to review telling me your opinions on the possibility, in exchange for my posting the epilogue? Also, if the sequel goes ahead as planned, would you rather I make the epilogue normal-sized and use the 7000 word thing for the first few chapters of the sequel? Seriously, I'm dying for information, here. So, all feedback is appreciated greatly - I'll make you my new best friend - - sorry Kim - and, well, here we go._

_Enjoy._

* * *

_Chapter 17_

Everybody was Kung-Fu Fighting

If there was one thing Draco Malfoy hated, it was Peeves. But when Peeves was flying around his head, singing a lovely little ditty about sauerkraut, and blowing raspberries that sprayed him with ghostly spit, well, that was just _super._ Really made him want to throw a party, you know? Especially with Hermione getting further away, both in distance and from the plane of reason, with each passing second.

He couldn't really be blamed for what he did next, could he? In his opinion, he was doing the world a favour, when he sent a nasty army of hexes at him that'd leave him immobile for weeks. Once satisfied that Peeves was well and truly occupied, he ran on to find Hermione.

He couldn't be blamed for _that_ either. He hadn't done anything with Bridget Barker – except gave her a few wicked hickeys – and Pansy Parkinson was a jerk for telling Hermione that he had. Oh well. He supposed she'd gotten her desserts, what with dying and all.

He could hardly believe how callous he was being, until he remembered. Oh yeah, _she'd tried to kill him. _More importantly, Hermione. And a hefty chunk of the population of Hogwarts. So yeah, she'd gotten her desserts, alright.

Besides, it wasn't like he'd pushed her, or anything.

Ahead, he caught a glimpse of Hermione, or, more accurately, Hermione's ankle as it swished around the corner. He followed, of course, yelling out to her as he went. A passing ghost tried to silence him, and was rewarded with a vehement expletive.

He followed her to the Gryffindor common room. By now, he was such a common sight around there that even the Fat Lady didn't mind him so much anymore. She let him through with a sad smile, obviously well aware of what had happened. News travelled fast in this godforsaken place.

He was popped in the face with one of those loud magical crackers. It appeared, so he realised, that he had walked into the middle of a celebratory fiesta. Not wanting to interrupt their bacchic fun, he skirted past a group of Gryffindors who appeared to be having a sculling competition, and aimed for the female dormitory.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Hermione. Oh. So, apparently, she hadn't gone storming up to her room to cry herself to sleep or whatever. She was standing in a corner, conversing calmly with Lavender Brown as she sipped cautiously at a red plastic cup.

Draco let out a sigh. This was going to be harder than he had expected.

Shredding every last semblance of dignity that he had, he strode over to Hermione and grasped her by the wrist. She hadn't seen him. He knew his touch would startle her, hopefully into submission.

"_What_?"

Uh oh. Perhaps contact hadn't been such a good idea after all.

"I want to talk to you," he offered hopefully.

"About the other girls you've been shagging? Thanks, but I'm eating."

It was true. An obedient looking Weasley was standing by her side, a plate of something tasty-looking balanced on his palm as the other one casually rested on the small of her back. He was inquiring after her health. Dirty scum-head.

Draco went on thinking equally vindictive thoughts about Ronald Weasley until he realised, hearing Hermione speak back to him – Ron, that is; Draco wasn't so lucky – that he still had a goal.

"Hermione," he begged. "Please, five minutes."

"What the hell are you doing here, anyway?" she demanded of him, without removing her eyes from the Weasel.

"The Fat Lady let me in," he said triumphantly. "Remember, I told you I'd win her over before we'd been dating a week, and you didn't believe me?"

He was trying – in vain, it might be noted – to bring up fond memories, to try and get her to speak to him.

It wasn't working.

"Ron, hold on a second, would you?" said Hermione, a friendly tone to her voice. "I've just got to go murder the Fat Lady. Here, hold my drink."

"Oh, no you don't," said Draco, stepping in her way and grabbing _both_ of her wrists this time. _'Ooh, tricky,'_ he thought. '_Now she can't get away.'_

As it turned out, not so tricky after all. He became aware of that, once Hermione ripped her hands from his iron grasp and popped him one in the eye.

Ooh, there it went. Apparently, he _had _had a shred of dignity left, coz _something_ had just gone _splat_ when she'd hit him just now.

"_Ow!_ Bugger! Blast! Holy mother of Merlin!"

Once he'd run out of swear words, he chased after her, one hand clapped to his eye and the other stretching out after Hermione.

"Wait!" he called. "Stop running! I _just want to talk_!"

"Go talk to _Bridget_!" was the witty rejoinder she sent back to wallop him in the face.

"_I am __**not**__ sleeping with Bridget Barker!_"

Ah. Finally, he knew how it felt to be utterly humiliated. It wasn't a pleasant feeling, having each and every eye in the room upon him. Except Hermione's, of course. They were busy trying to control the tears that threatened to spill over.

Oh, well that was just wonderful. He'd made her cry.

Finally, she ran for the portrait door. They could be alone now. He could properly explain.

"Hermione, you've got to believe me," he said, pleadingly. He didn't know how to inflect enough sorrow into his voice. It was not humanly possible.

"You haven't denied it, except for that lovely little outburst in there," she pointed out, after whirling around with an accusatory expression on her face.

He took a step that was more than enough to get him by her side, instead overstepping and ending up pressed up against her, which really, you know, wasn't so bad. He turned her face up with his index fingers, and began to explain. "Listen, you know as well as I do that Pansy's full of shit. I _don't_, and I _didn't_. You heard her. She wanted to break us up, and she lied to do that. I would _never_ do anything like that, and Bridget Barker was a girl I dated for a few weeks back in fourth year."

Unfortunately, he'd forgotten to take a breath anywhere in there.

"Okay."

He was surprised. "Okay? What do you mean, okay?"

"I mean, okay."

She obviously thought he was a nutjob. He was indignant. He wasn't crazy. Just a little disbelieving.

"_Really_?"

"Oh, for God's sake." Hermione was frustrated.

He smiled, and for a moment, she seemed to be won over. He put on his suavest, most attractive face, and jerked his head backwards. Well, he intended to jerk his head towards himself – his mouth, really – but he wasn't sure how to do that. Backwards seemed the best bet.

"Come here," he said, and she seemed to understand that one. She flew into his chest, and he had a little trouble remembering why they'd been apart. Actually, with her so close and her cheek pressed against his neck, he had trouble remembering his _name_.

"Draco," she murmured.

"Mmm?" he said, preoccupied with working his way along her neck with his lips, and also congratulating himself over getting her back so quickly.

"That tickles... hold on a second..."

"Nuh," he decided.

She rolled her eyes. "Who the hell says 'nuh', you Neantherthal?"

Her protests were ephemeral, seeing as he relocated his lips to hers a few seconds later. He had, the epitome of politeness, waited for her to finish her sentence before adjusting.

"Gross," muttered the Bloody Baron hoarsely as he flew over their heads.

"Ignore him," Draco advised Hermione.

She nodded resolutely. "I will."

They had been fiercely continuing with the activity that appeared to disgust the Baron so much, when Dumbledore ran into them.

"You two, stop that," he said, for once not-so-nice. "We've just discovered that Pansy Parkinson is a Death Eater. She let them into the castle through Hogsmeade."

They smirked at each other knowingly.

"Really, Professor?" asked Draco sarcastically. "I had no idea. She didn't mention that in her little monologue."

"Mono- mono- what is he talking about, Hermione?"

"She attacked us up on the roof," explained Hermione.

"And then jumped off it," supplied Draco helpfully.

"She... sh-she _what_?"

It was quite interesting, to see Dumbledore well and truly lost for words. A vein on his forehead was bulging and his nose appeared to be elongating. Wait, perhaps that was just Draco's lack of sleep.

"Pansy Parkinson is dead," confirmed Hermione, and if he wasn't mistaken, she seemed a little... repentant.

He didn't know why. _She_ hadn't been the one poking fun at her until she'd dove off the edge of the roof.

"You feel bad," he remarked.

Dumbledore didn't comment. He was too busy have an apoplexy or whatever it was called.

"Of course I feel bad," hissed Hermione. "A girl is _dead_, and I'm responsible!"

"Did you push her?" he asked.

"Well, no, of course not, but-"

"Did you tell her to jump?"

"No, but I still-"

"Did you at any point in your conversation say 'Die, Pansy, die!'?"

He chose to leave out that he had been thinking it, very hard.

"No," she said in a small voice.

He folded his arms, satisfied. "Well, then. Hate to say I told you so, but..."

"_Professor Dumbledore_!" bellowed Harry Potter as he skidded around the corner. "PROFESSOR- oh! There you are! You'd better come quickly. Lucius Malfoy's been found dead at the foot of the castle."

Weasley, who Draco hadn't noticed, skulking behind Harry like that, added enthusiastically, "Yeah! Neville stepped right on him, and slipped over and then he fainted once he realised who it was, 'coz gosh, his eyes are creepy when he's staring at you, and then it was like-"

"Ron!" hissed Harry and Hermione at the same time. Dumbledore looked perturbed. Draco just smirked. He was astounded, but he didn't actually mind Weasley's disrespectful portrayal of his father's discovery. As a matter of fact, he was quite amused by it.

"I'm on my way," Dumbledore said, and, before sweeping away with his robe flying out behind him, added to Draco and Hermione, "We'll finish this later."

Dumbledore was interrupted in his haste to get to the body by a small first year who burst in yelling, "Argh! Professor Dumbledore, Professor Dumbledore! There's a _girl_ on the grass, and I think she's _not alive_!"

Harry and Ron glanced at each other, and then at Draco and Hermione. Hermione looked down. Draco jerked his head at the door, and they both ran for it.

Once they were out of the hall, Hermione whipped around to face Draco with her hands on her hips, and demanded, "Draco Malfoy! You'd better pray to God that I'm mistaken, and that you _weren't_ just _smiling_ when Ron said that about your father!"

"You know, I'm tired. Shall we continue this in the morning, dear one? Sorry if I don't walk you to your common room, but I'm really beat..." He feigned an exaggerated yawn and began to head past the last trickle of the wounded and tired, towards the Slytherin common room.

Boy. He _really_ must not want to face Hermione's wrath, because he'd actually been entertaining some rather nice plans of spending the night in a lonely room with her. Nothing dirty, of course.

"_Draco Malfoy_."

He stopped in his tracks, and spun slowly. Her hands were still on her hips, and she was glaring quite emphatically at him.

"Yes?" he asked sweetly. "Oh, sorry. Forgot." He leant forward, quickly pecked her on the lips, and scampered in the opposite direction.

By now, the Great Hall was empty. The remnants of the activities of its previous occupants were still there: the torn robes, the bandages and salves. Draco was glad that it was unoccupied. Less people to step on in his haste to get out of there. Away from Hermione's anger.

He was almost at the door, when it slammed shut with a bang that rattled his brain. The windows all shuttered and locked like dominoes, one after the other. The room fizzled with magic, and he felt an inexplicable force tugging him around. He did, unwillingly. Hermione wasn't happy. He didn't blame her. He supposed running away like that hadn't been smart. It would have worked, though, if she didn't have such bloody quick reflexes.

"Hermione," he tried tentatively. "I'm sorry for running away from you. Is there something you'd like to talk about?"

She increased the voltage of her glare. He could swear he almost felt his hair stand up like he'd been electrocuted. He would know. The frequent incidents during which Draco pissed off his father hadn't ended well for him. If someone asked him, right now, which he'd prefer: getting electrocuted or facing Hermione... well, it would be an easy decision, and he didn't think Hermione would like his answer very much.

"Hermione?"

She wasn't looking at him. In fact, in a rather petulant little gesture, she'd obstinately turned her face away from him. Her arms were folded now. He couldn't resist rolling his eyes. She looked like a two year old. An extremely sexy one, admittedly, but in gesture and facial expression...

"Stop laughing at me," she growled.

"Or what?" he laughed.

She named something she'd do to him, that was so vicious that he cowered backwards, hands over his crotch. "Please don't. Little Draco likes his current home."

He had expected _that_ to get a bit of a reaction – even if it was just a roll of the eyes or an '_honestly_, Draco, could you be any more immature/disgusting/so wonderfully sexy that I want to throw you against a wall and-

He really had to stop letting his mind take those baby steps into the gutter. Perhaps there was some sort of a support group he could join.

"Hermione," he said, seriously this time once he caught a look at the expression on her face. "Really, what's wrong? You can't be all in a huff because I'm not donning my mourning veil over my father."

"I'm 'in a huff'," she retorted, "because of your obvious lack of emotions."

"I have emotions!" he cried defensively.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

Her eyes narrowed. "Prove it."

He stood there, wondering blankly if she was serious.

When she started tapping her foot, a smug look encroaching upon her face, he took a stab in the dark and tried, "Erm... I love you?"

She shot him a disparaging look. "Are you sure that's not _lust_?"

Oh, now she was questioning his obvious love for her? What the bloody hell had happened to the Hermione he knew and loved? Perhaps seeing two people die within about half an hour of each other had screwed up her internal workings, made her temporarily insane.

He hoped it was temporary, anyway.

In the mean time, he had to defend his dignity and honour and such. Never mind that he wasn't in the mood, and that he was _really _hungry. He had to fight back. In the nicest possible terms, of course.

"It isn't lust, Hermione! I haven't tried to sleep with you!"

The little voice in the back of his head that occasionally popped up added, '_Yet._'

Hermione snorted.

"What?" he asked defensively.

She shook her head. "I could practically hear you thinking it. You haven't tried to sleep with me... yet."

He tried not to let his eyes widen in awe. How had she known he was thinking that? Was his mind _really_ that one-track? ...Bugger.

"Hermione," he said, this time going with the pleading tone rather than the angry one. Seemed to work best with her, sometimes. On the odd occasion. Every now and again, really.

"Don't 'Hermione' me," she snapped.

Ah, yep. There it goes.

Draco was quite unrepentant of his next action. He pushed her, not roughly but not exactly tender either, against the wall, his wall beside her head to stop her from getting away, and his face in the perfect position to whisper sweet nothings in her ear, and prepared to accept any loving kisses she decided to bestow upon him. Ah, he was a genius sometimes.

Lightning cracked, skeletons turned in their graves. Hermione gave him such a look as which made him recoil. She was _furious_.

"You _pushed_ me!" she shouted, and Draco began to consider the possibility that perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea after all.

"I'm sorry," he said immediately. Lying through his teeth, but he didn't care to add that.

"No, you aren't," she said, narrowing her eyes at him.

Something about that – the way she looked so incredibly sexy while bawling him out – made him snap.

"Look, I'm sorry, for everything. For my apparent lack of 'emotion' and disregard for anyone's feelings except my own. That I don't give a flying fuck that my father's dead, and that I can't seem to make you believe you. Because, Hermione, you are _so_ not over what Pansy said. I don't know why you believed her, why she's somehow penetrated into your brain, but you need to get it through your head that _I love you_, and nothing anybody – least of all _you_ – says can change that. Okay? Because if you don't believe me, well, what the hell am I supposed to do then?"

She stared at him for a moment, and it seemed like she virtually deflated. Like her hair – which had gained circumference in the past five minutes – had flattened down, more or less, and that the flame had gone from her eyes.

"Perhaps," she allowed, in a soft voice, "you could kiss me now?"

Well, he wasn't exactly going to turn down such an opportunity like that, was he? He obliged happily, pressing her up against the wall again except that this time she didn't yell at him.

His fingers were twisted in her hair, and he wasn't exactly certain that he'd be able to get them out. Oh well. He could figure that out later, once he was done throwing Hermione against the wall and-

"Holy bloody Merlin! What the _flaming_ hell are you two doing in here?"

Blaise's voice startled them so much that they flew apart like shrapnel, although, of course, as they were a couple and all, they were perfectly within their rights to be making out in the Great Hall. Perhaps not on the tables on which they ate, though.

"Blaise!" hissed Draco. "Not a good time!"

Hermione was straightening herself up. With pleasure, Draco noted that she looked rather like she'd just been-

"Draco," said Blaise pleasantly. "I thought we discussed this. The Great Hall is mine every second night."

Hermione whipped her head around and glared at Draco, who smiled sheepishly.

"Sorry, Blaise," he said, trying to gather up the dignity he had left. "We got carried away. Shall we relocate?"

"I don't think so," muttered Hermione, touching her head gingerly. When they'd sprung apart, his fingers had ripped out of her hair. It seemed to have hurt.

"No, no, don't bother," said Blaise, disappearing for a moment. Draco could hear him calling softly, "Kim! Stop speaking to the paintings! I'm heading to the Room of Requirement. Care to join me?"

"Nymphomaniac," muttered Kim as he pulled her past the door.

Hermione and Draco both gazed after them, before their gazes instantly snapped back to meet the other's.

"So," he said, swinging her hand in his a half hour later, as they walked around Hogwarts in the middle of the night. "We still on for the holiday?"

"But... your father..."

He sighed, and she pushed him against the wall not-so-gently. "Draco, we really need to talk about this."

He glanced at her, and nodded quickly. "Okay. But not here."

He pulled her to the Slytherin common room, where the portrait, like the Fat Lady, was used to the two of them together and admitted them both without a word. His finger pressed to his lips, he tiptoed across the green carpet to the staircase. Hermione let out a feminine giggle that wouldn't seem too out of place if anyone heard. The Slytherin boys were always bringing girls to their rooms. It got a bit annoying, actually, at two in the morning.

As Blaise and he were the only ones who slept in their room, and Blaise was currently otherwise occupied with trying to convince Kim, in his sweetest and most seductive tones, that she ought to sleep with him, they had the room to themselves.

Hermione sat on his bed, and waited. Draco took a breath, buying himself a little more time before he'd have to commence story time. She didn't see past his ruse. Impatiently, she gestured for him to start.

"I don't like my father," he said simply.

Hermione waited.

"Stop looking at me. That's all there is to it."

And waited.

"Hey! Don't shake your head like that!"

"Draco, Draco, Draco. When are you going to get it through your thick head that I can _tell_ when you're lying? I _know_ you."

"Gosh, be little harsher, why don't you?" he muttered, and then squeezed her hand to make sure she wasn't going to hit him or anything. He knew firsthand from their third year that her right hook was far too developed to be legal.

"Keep going," she urged.

He sighed. "He's a Death Eater. For years, he'd have fellow Death Eater friends over to have a lovely bitch about the muggleborns in the wizarding world. In plain view of his young, impressionable son, too. He's not a nice person, Hermione. He tortures people, kills them even. It's unbearably hard, to live with the expectation that I'll follow in his footsteps – both from him, and everyone at this damn school." He glanced at her. "Except you, now, of course."

Hermione had this tiny little smile upon her face that expressed no humour. It was a sad smile, like she pitied him or something.

"What is it?" he asked uneasily. He hadn't worded it like that in order to get sympathy. He'd meant to just state the facts.

She seemed reluctant to say, but eventually admitted, "You keep referring to him in present tense. It... it just seems like it hasn't even sunk in yet."

He hadn't realised, but she was exactly right. He'd been saying 'he _is_'. It hit him, in a way that was so poetic it made him want to hurl. His father was never coming back. No, it was more than that. His father had been teetering on the edge of life and death, and Draco hadn't done a damn thing to save him. He was a terrible person.

It was a tribute to how well Hermione could read him that she had her arms around him in a moment, and murmured, "You couldn't have known. We were in shock. There was nothing we could have done," the next.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he couldn't have done anything to save him.

It just killed him that he hadn't even tried.

It came out, in a rush, and Draco was pouring out things about his father... how he made him feel, how he'd cursed him, how he didn't want to grow up to be like him...

That one caught Hermione's attention. She grabbed both of his wrists, and said, in a low, urgent voice, "Draco Malfoy, you are _not_ going to end up like your father. He was a bad man, and you're the most intelligent, kind person I know."

Well _those_ were two words you'd never expect to hear in a sentence with his name.

"Jesus, Hermione," – he'd even picked up some Muggle slang – "I love you, so much."

She rolled her eyes slightly. "Cut the chit chat."

He did. He cut it, and commenced kissing her instead. A wonderful alternative, in his esteemed opinion.

It was in that moment, making out with Hermione on his bed, that Draco came to terms with it all – with his brand as a Death Eater, with his determination to be different, with his father's death. For once, it didn't seem so crazy scary to him, especially not when he had a beautiful brunette who was an exceptionally excellent kisser by his side to help him along.

* * *

_Aww! Draco's gone sentimental. Just to explain his little bout of OOC-ness... seeing people – not to mention, his _father_ and his _ex-girlfriend_, die consecutively, after a taxing battle during which various Hogwartians died, has got to be pretty nerve-wracking. I don't blame him, and I hope you don't either, for getting a little protective and sentimental now that he realises how lucky he is, and how __close he was to losing her and everything. So, that little tidbit was just for any of ya'll who were wondering why Draco's turned into such a pansy in this one, no pun intended. It's also why Hermione was so close to a breakdown, and believed Pansy. _

_Feedback, as always, is appreciated, and I hope you'll join me for the epilogue._


	18. Epilogue

_Oh my goodness. It's coming to an end. You can't see me, but right now, I've got my grumpy face on._

_Wow. Over 100 reviews. I must say, I never expected anything like this. _

_It's been a fun ride, kids. But it's official. There WILL be a sequel, and I've rewritten the ginormously huge epilogue that used be here: vvv (those are meant to be down arrows). Here's to all those who have shared their thoughts with me: Lollipop Shoes, xxxxcrazychickxxxx, flamingbunnies, Twitchy the Squirrel, BlueSpottedDog and MadeNew. Thanks, guys! The first chapter should be posted as soon as I possibly can be bothered. _

_A short warning... for all of you who hate fluff/cheese, you should probably either grab yourself a barf bag or stop reading right about... _now_. I couldn't resist giving them a bit of happiness. Also, if any of you are called Quincy... I apologise. It's Draco talking, not me!_

_And, without any further ado, I give you... the epilogue. Enjoy. _

* * *

_Epilogue_

A Catchphrase, a Beginning, and the Dress

"You're meant to applaud," said Draco, sounding a little miffed.

Hermione clapped her hands sarcastically, standing in front of Malfoy Manor. Truth was, she didn't think she could be trusted to speak. It was so huge. So... Malfoy-ish.

"You know, that was a joke, dear," he added casually as he swung past her. "You know, a humorous comment that you're expected to laugh at?"

"Laughing on the inside," was her shaky response, as she stood at the gate surveying the huge house in front of her.

It was more of a castle, actually. Lucius' grandfather or something had bought it from a gambling prince and made it a little more... classy. Draco surveyed it with her, and shrugged. It wasn't that impressive. Just a big house with an even bigger chunk of baggage. He shuddered to think of what skeletons were hidden under the floorboards in Lucius' study.

That was part of the reason they were there. Apart, of course, to spend the holiday together, per Draco's promise, he also had to clean out the house. His mother had vamoosed, and, other than a postcard with a dancing flamingo on it, he'd had no correspondence with her. Dumbledore had taken care of informing her of Lucius' death, thank Merlin. Draco wasn't sure how he would have handled her happy dance. He wondered lightly whether she cabbage-patched.

But, now that Lucius' will was read and Narcissa had nicked off with a sizeable hunk of his fortune, Draco was free to renovate or modify his new house. Well, not new, seeing as he'd lived here from the cradle, but newly his. He supposed the picture frame made of dried pasta from kindergarten had done the trick. Either that, or he hadn't had time to cut Draco out of his will, in his haste to don his Death Eater robes again.

"It's amazing," stated Hermione, looking around her at the snake-shaped hedges, up at the black and white manor.

Draco glanced back at her, still standing behind the wrought-iron gate. He rolled his eyes, and held out his hand encouragingly. "Coming? It won't eat you, unless you piss it off."

Hermione shot him a scathing glare, her nails biting into his palm. Draco chose not to inform her that the house, knowing his father, probably _could_ eat her.

He withdrew the iron key from his pocket, and inserted it into the lock. This door was retarded, but his father had refused to get rid of it because of the dragon's head knocker. There was a ritual involved. He wiggled the key in the lock, kicked the door twice, put pressure on the hinges, and twisted the door knob. His father wasn't aware of the incommodity of this arrangement, because all he had ever done was whack the door with his staff – no wonder the poor door was in such bad shape – or knock the knocker with extreme force, and wait for the butler to arrive.

Quincy had been with them since the end of Draco's second year, when Dobby had been set free by that stinking Potter. Draco hadn't wanted another house elf to go and bitch to Harry Potter about him, so he'd demanded a human this time. Lucius had agreed, a little too hastily. Draco had a feeling Dobby hadn't been all that kind about Lucius, either.

"You've got to be kidding me," murmured Hermione, mostly to herself, with wide eyes when the door opened to show Quincy standing there sombrely.

"Miss Granger," he said, nodding at her. Looking at Draco, he pulled back his lips into a scowl, and said, sounding a little forced, "Master Malfoy."

"Please, Quincy," said Draco, grinning slightly. "Lose the 'master'. You can call me 'King' or 'Emperor'. Everybody does."

"Oh, Lord," said Quincy.

Hermione jumped a little, recognising the curse. Quincy was, needless to say, a muggleborn. How could you not be, with a name like _Quincy_?

"How do you put up with him?" Quincy asked her.

"Truthfully... I've no idea."

Draco pouted. "Oh, that's right, go bond and paint your toenails. I'll be here, waiting, in case anybody remembers that there's a little boy freezing outside."

Quincy ushered them both – Hermione first – into the house, and shot at Draco, "You aren't inside anymore."

"Still freezing," he noted, physically shivering at the chill that lingered around the room from Lucius' presence her. It even _smelled_ like him in here.

Quincy and Hermione were ignoring him, tentatively exchanging remarks over some incident in the Muggle papers. Draco, with a loud sigh, dragged both his and Hermione's bags inside, and handed Quincy an envelope.

"What's this?" he asked suspiciously. "Not Bubotuber pus again, I hope?"

Draco stifled a smirk. Quincy'd had to wear bandages on his hands for _weeks_.

"It's a ticket," he said abruptly. "Living with my parents for four years deserves a celebration. Pick anywhere in the world. The plane's yours for a year. Oh, but I'd stay away from Majorca. That's where Mother is, and we both know that she's likely to get her claws into you if you're within a twenty mile radius of her."

Quincy nodded solemnly, and Draco thought he could detect the first hint of a smile he'd ever seen on his face.

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing," he said suddenly as Draco pushed him out the front door. "You just want alone time with your lovely girlfriend."

He nodded sheepishly. "It's true. Buh bye! Get a tan!"

The door clanged shut, and Hermione glanced curiously at Draco. "That was... nice of you," she said, sounding a tiny bit too suspicious for his liking.

"What can I say? I'm a wonderful person!"

"And modest too," she noted.

"Well, you knew what you were getting into, I hope," he said, smiling slightly as he led her through the foyer and up the stairs to the bedroom next to his. "

"This mine?" she asked casually, looking around. It was obviously difficult for her to affect nonchalance. He had a feeling _she_ didn't have a swimming pool in her bedroom back home. Frankly, Draco didn't know what he'd do if he couldn't go for a dip at two in the morning without taking more than two steps.

"Yes, it is. Unless you'd rather share mine, of course..." He let his words trail of seductively. Hermione threw a pillow at his head.

She sat comfortably on the bed – green silk, in case you were wondering – and gazed around. "You know, I think I'll be fine in here, alone... The pool is great though. Especially if I feel like going for a swim in the middle of the night, and don't really feel like putting a costume on..." She gave him a coy smile that looked strangely content there on her face. Draco scowled. If there was going to be any late night nudity, he was _definitely _going to be there.

"Don't be disgusting," she snapped suddenly, probably sensing what he was thinking about from the expression on his face.

"I'm not," he said innocently, clutching at his heart.

She rolled her eyes, and stood up. He took a moment to admire her behind as she walked past him, and another moment to wonder why she was walking away. Once it registered in his too-slow brain, he chased after her. She was already downstairs, standing bewildered in the cross roads between six different hallways. She looked lost. Draco grinned.

"Lost?" he inquired, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her.

"Nope," she said, flashing him a smile. "Just pondering."

"Liar," he muttered, kissing the side of her head.

"I think," she said slowly, "you should feed me."

He rolled his eyes, and pulled her to the kitchen. "One track mind, much?"

She perched on a stool, and retorted, "You can talk."

He looked around the kitchen, a little confused. How was he supposed to feed her? All he knew was how to _be _fed. Then it hit him.

"A _ha_!"

Hermione burst out laughing, and slid off her stool. "I know, I know. We're going out. The look in your eyes... have you ever cooked in your _life_?"

He shook his head. "Not once. I'm going to go get dressed."

He went back up to his room, replacing his travel clothes with a suit. The place he intended to take Hermione was very fancy. As in, no barefoot patrons fancy. As in, overpriced meals and good wine that he could procure using his status fancy. Always big fun having waiters thrice your age kiss your feet.

"Draco!" complained Hermione from outside his door. "Where are we going? I need to see what I should wear."

He opened the door, dangling a black dress bag from his index finger. "I'd suggest this, but if not, a tracksuit should be fine."

Hermione was gaping at his outfit, mouth slightly ajar. "A suit? You've got to be kidding me."

"I sense a new catch phrase," sang Draco, flicking at her with the bag. She reluctantly took it from it and carried it into her room. "Go, change. I'll leave without you!"

Her voice sailed through the walls. "But then you'd be a loser, sitting alone at a restaurant... ooh, _wow_!"

He smirked smugly to himself, and called, "I'll be downstairs."

Draco lounged against the post at the bottom of the staircase, adjusting his position so that he would look his very coolest when Hermione came down.

She called from upstairs, out of sight, "It looks awful! It's too tight!"

"What are you on about?" he yelled back, irritated. "I got your measurements from Kim! Come down anyway, let me see."

He heard footsteps at the top of the stairs, and then she appeared. Draco forgot about everything, about looking cool, about whether Kim had purposely given him the wrong measurements... She looked beautiful, and she was _very_ wrong about the dress. So far from wrong, in fact, that the sight of it had immobilised him. He was like marble as she glided down the stairs, an uncertain look on her face.

"It's horrible, isn't it? I told you so."

His hand tingled, and he realised that he could move it again. He stretched it out to her, and the second her hand closed around his, he pulled her to him – pulling her off the ground, in fact – and kissed her.

"It's absolutely disgusting. Take it off this instant," he whispered in her ear.

She hit him lightly in the back, and glanced down. It was blue, about the same shade as her Yule Ball robes had been, back in fourth year when he'd thought she was an annoying know-it-all. Even then, he hadn't been able to ignore her in blue. Now, with a curtain of love clouding his judgement even further, it was even harder. _Especially_ with the dress being as tight as it was.

He guided her to the front door, and out into the limousine.

"You have _got _to be kidding me."

He rolled his eyes.

"Something about this makes me feel like this was planned," said Hermione, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Plan? Who, me?"

He opened the door and ushered her in. She looked very suspicious, but calmed down a little when a band she recognised started to blare from the stereo. He hadn't expected her to be a Ramones girl, until he'd walked in on her singing in the shower. He laughed, remembering the expression on her face when she realised that he had seen her... in the shower...

"What are you laughing at?" she demanded.

"You."

He certainly had no qualms about pissing her off. But somehow, she didn't snap at him like she usually would. She just waved a hand dismissively at him and started intently surveying the buttons on the control panel.

"Buttons," he observed.

"Good _boy_!" exclaimed Hermione sarcastically, and then smiled sweetly, looking just a tad guilty. "I'm sorry. You really _are_ clever."

"I know," said Draco, leaning back into the freshly-upholstered seats and sighing contentedly.

Once he got a little bored of looking sexy, he turned his attention onto his next favourite hobby: admiring Hermione looking sexy. It was almost as fun , too, especially when a pink tinge painted her cheeks and she scowled nervously at him, trying to tug his arm, from where it was resting on her bare shoulders, around her to cover her up a little more. Well, of course, he interpreted that as her wanting him to feel her up.

Apparently not.

"Draco! Gerrof me!"

He grinned, but shifted away in his seat a little. "Don't pretend you don't love me."

To his immense surprise, this time it was Hermione who closed the gap between them. She moved closer to him and whispered, "You know I do."

A second later, his hands were twirled in her carefully coiffed hair, and he was pulling her mouth against his. One of her hands was travelling aimlessly, frantically, over his back, and the other arm was curled around her neck, her fingers buried in his hair and ruining the style. Oh well. If this was the alternative to having perfect hair, he'd choose this in a heartbeat.

"Lars!" he hollered hoarsely, breaking away from Hermione momentarily and banging on the separator. "Take us home. We're blowing off dinner."

Hermione laughed, and fell against him as the car did a U-turn and headed in the way it had just come.

His stomach growled loudly, provoking another fit of tinkling laughter from Hermione. He ordered Lars to make a detour to the nearest take out restaurant, but the paper bags lay disregarded on the seats on the way back to the manor. Hermione and Draco were too busy making out to take any notice of the food.

The drive home didn't seem so long this time, probably because Hermione was distracting him in a way that made him lose track of everything, the time included.

He led Hermione through the house, up to his bedroom. It wasn't like he was intending on stealing her virtue or anything. He just thought they'd be more comfortable there. He hated eating in the cold dining room. It brought back memories of the long, silent meals forcibly shared with his parents. He shuddered slightly at the thought, and accidentally ran Hermione into the door.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry," he said hastily, dumping the food on his desk. They perched on chairs, strewn haphazardly throughout the room, and ate. Hermione, he was amused to see, tucked a napkin into her dress like a bib. Draco couldn't care less about getting his clothes messed up, and he was determined to make Hermione feel the same. Because, after all, what was his was hers. Not officially, or anything, but that was how he saw it.

"What're you laughing at?" asked Hermione suspiciously, delicately dabbing at the tomato sauce around her mouth.

"A bib, Hermione?" he asked, stifling his laugh.

She sniffed haughtily. "I don't want to risk spilling on this beautiful dress."

"So you admit it! You _do_ like it!" he exclaimed triumphantly, jabbing a finger at her dress. Well, more specifically, her chest, which was, to his defence, partly covered by the dress.

"Yes," she admitted grudgingly. "But you don't have to buy me nice things to make me like you, Draco. God, I liked you even when you were an arrogant jerk."

He smiled widely, knowing she was right. "Thanks, sweetheart! So nice of you!"

She flushed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that-"

Music started to stream from unseen speakers on his wall. He smirked to himself. Clap on clap off stereos were the bomb. He started sniggering, unable to believe he had just called something 'the bomb'.

Hermione didn't seem to notice though, because her glance was darting around, trying to find the source of the music. That's why it took her a few seconds to process that Draco Malfoy was standing in front of her, one pale hand extended. As soon as she _did_ realise, she took it, and let herself be pulled to her feet.

Draco was an expert at this. Not just wooing women, but _dancing_. He was truly wonderful at it, as he wouldn't hesitate to inform you if you asked. The thing that surprised him, though, was that Hermione could do it just as well. He sent a silent thank-you to Viktor Krum in his head, and used the hand on the small of her back to bring her closer to him.

She had her eyes closed, a heavenly smile on her face as they swayed. Draco laughed quietly, and her caramel eyes opened, an inquisitive spark in them. He plucked the napkin from her dress, and sent it in a screwed up ball towards the wall. She joined in laughing softly, before she leant her head against his shoulder. It was a good thing he was so tall, because the hollow in his shoulder fit her head perfectly.

That is when, as Draco danced with Hermione, he was hit with an astounding epiphany. She was perfect for him, and he'd never let her go. Not for as long as he lived.

"Hermione," he began, not sure why he was whispering, "I-"

His shiny shoe slipped on a small puddle of pool water, and, with flailing arms, he fell into the pool. Hermione stood there, horrified. That is, until the splash from his fall hit her in her front. And then another one, which he'd sent at her just for fun. She let out a shriek, and Draco burst out laughing.

"What is _wrong_ with you?" she yelled, gazing down at her sopping dress.

"Come now, Hermione," he said, wading over to the side of the pool and getting a firm grip on her ankle. "It's not so bad."

Before she registered the evil grin on his face, or that his hand was wrapped around her leg, she was tumbling into the pool.

"Draco!" she screamed, shivering in water that wasn't so cold.

He swam over to her, having a little difficulty in his dinner suit. So he discarded the shoes and the jacket, hurling them onto the floor. He wrapped his arms around her, and, with a little sigh of contentment, she murmured, "Better."

He raised her face up to him and kissed her on the mouth. She responded immediately, of course. What half-sane woman wouldn't? When she pulled away, gasping for air, she whispered, "You've got to be kidding me. What did I do to deserve you?"

"Got extremely lucky," said Draco cockily. "Perhaps you were a nun in a past life."

"Oh yes, that's got to be it," said Hermione, only a little sarcastically, and kissed him again.

As they stood there in each others arms in the pool, Draco mulled over the past few weeks. It was almost incredibly to cast his mind back to the annoying, occasionally obnoxious and prejudiced Draco Malfoy that he had been up until Hermione had saved him. He really had to thank the gossips at Hogwarts, throwing them together like they had. He supposed, grudgingly, that this meant he had to be nice to Harry and Ron from now on.

Movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. An owl flew through the open window, framed against the full moon shining through it. It sailed over his head, dropping a newspaper on Draco. He caught it before it hit the ground, and surveyed it quickly. On the front page, a picture of the two of them in the coffee shop they'd visited a few days before, holding hands and talking intently as they sat in the window of the café. The headline read, in thick print, 'Best friend and worst enemy of Boy Who Lived reconcile. By yours truly, Rita Skeeter.'

Draco let out a laugh, and threw the newspaper out the window. The grapevine strikes again. Right now, all he wanted to think about was the girl opposite him, who had wriggled from the pool to pay the owl. He felt a difference with this new attack of publicity. Stronger, somehow. Like this was the beginning of something special. Well, he could have told you that. He loved her.

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_Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks so much to all of you who have stuck with me. Feedback, as always, is appreciated, and be ready for the first chapters of the sequel within the next few weeks. _


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